Becoming Uninvisible
by JJLives
Summary: All Brittany wants is to get through her remaining high school years as quickly and invisibly as possible. When her father's job transfers them, once again, and she ends up in a place called Lima she finds that may be a harder task than she first thought.
1. Chapter 1

_Ok it his is going to be my first multi-chapter story on this site so hopefully it goes well. This has been playing around in my head for awhile now so I decided to write and post it. Hope you all enjoy. _

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The sun was high overhead, signaling the days proximity to mid-day, by the time they had everything loaded into the large, overbearingly red, moving van. It had taken them longer than expected, even with the help of the two burly men that were hired to help pack and unpack the van once they got to their new house. It didn't help that the Muscles, as she kindly nicknamed them, were slightly incompetent, dropping boxes and dinging the furniture carelessly off of almost every door-frame in the house. The look on her mother's face hardened as the morning wore on, noticing that her kind words of warning were falling on deaf ears. It was surprising that her dad hadn't intervened and fired the two men hours ago, he was decidedly more outspoken than her mother on these matters, but she supposed that it would've been hard to replace the men on such short notice and they were already on a tight schedule; moving their entire lives across the country in a single weekend was slightly stressful without the added headache of searching out an alternate moving company. If they hadn't done this a dozen times over the past ten years she was sure her parents would've been blowing a gasket on the increased hassle the two men were adding to the day.

Brittany Pierce looked up at the two story house she'd lived in for the past eight months. It had been one of their longer stays and one would think that it would hold at least a tiny amount of sentimental value to the teen. But as she looked at the pale yellow siding and white shuttered windows she found that she wasn't sad at leaving the house behind. House being the operative word. It had never been a home to her and, she supposed, that was a good enough reason as any for her lack of emotional attachment to the sunshine colored structure. It had been so long since she had felt at home. She was beginning to think that maybe she'd forgotten how it was supposed to feel, or at least forgotten how to get to that feeling.

Her attention was drawn sharply back to the moving van as one of the men slammed the sliding door down hard. The door bounced on impact, letting out a loud clang of disapproval, before it settled and almost instantly there was the sound of something shifting and then something, sounding unfortunately very glass-like, breaking. Brittany winced, hoping it wasn't anything important, although that was almost impossible. They moved a lot and the things they dragged with them from city to city, although mostly insignificant to her, held sentimental value for her parents.

The man cringed as he latched the door and padlocked it closed in a rush. His eyes went wide as he turned to see Brittany frowning at him, obviously having heard the same thing he had. Brittany noticed his eyes darting toward her parents in apprehension, who were just exiting the house after their final sweep, making sure nothing was forgotten. The man's eyes connected with hers again and she shrugged her shoulders at him. What was done was done. Muscles smiled at her in thanks, or apology, she wasn't sure, she didn't really care which. Her parents would find whatever had been damaged when they unpacked at their new abode. She didn't need or want either of her parents worrying over anymore irrelevant delays, especially her mother. She might actually demand to find out what shattered before leaving, and Brittany just wanted to get on the road. This day was moving at a snail's pace.

A few couples were milling about the front yard, creating a grating humming sound, like wing beats of swarming insects, with their lively chatter. As her parents came forward after locking up the house they took turns shaking hands and giving hugs, exchanging false smiles and promises to keep in touch. Brittany turned and strode inconspicuously towards her family`s SUV, leaning against the vehicles shiny silver paint job. It wasn't a brand new vehicle but her father kept it in good condition, he took pride in his appearance, which included not only the tailored suits he wore but both the vehicle he drove and the house he lived in. Taking diligent care of all, for appearance sake.

She watched as her parents exchanged pleasantries with their neighbours and her dad's colleagues. She couldn't recall hardly any of their names. The Patterson's, of course, had lived next door and their daughter, Hailey, had gone to school with her, but she couldn't find names for any of the others crowding her former front yard. She was sure the man with the bad comb over was Bob or Brad, something along those lines. And even though a few well wishers had brought their children, whom most of which she recognized from the halls at school, she had never really learned their names, them having not been in the same classes as her.

Finally her mother was able to detached herself from the swarm and made her way toward the vehicle as well, unlocking the SUV as she got near. Thankful, Brittany pulled the rear door open and started to slide into the leather seat.

"Brittany." Her mother's voice stopped her, just as she was shutting the door. She waited, until her mother's blond hair and pale face came into view over the top of the SUV's door frame.

"Yeah?" she asked giving her mother an innocent look. Her mother in return glared rather disapprovingly at her daughter, blue eyes sharply connecting with Brittany's soft ones.

"Aren't you going to say goodbye?"

"To who?" Brittany replied slowly, wondering who her mother could be referring to. She didn't have anyone to say farewell to. She hadn't made any friends this time around. Well, really she hadn't made friends at any of their past few stay-overs. It wasn't as if they ever stayed put for the long run, so why bother trying to make lasting relationships anymore; they would just end in a few months and she'd be forgotten by everyone the next week anyway.

"How about Hailey?" her mother mentioned. "She's been our neighbour for a year, Brittany. The least-"

"Eight months." Brittany cut in quietly.

"What was that?" Mrs Pierce asked, leaning further over the car door, getting closer in order to hear her daughters whispered words. Looking up Brittany met her mothers gaze.

"It's been eight months, not a year." she stated simply.

"Brittany," she warned, backing away once more to fix Brittany with a stoney glare, harder and colder than previously.

Brittany's eyes rolled before she could restrain herself but pushed herself out of the car's comforting refuge a second later. Her mother's features relaxed, frown lines disappearing, as she smiled at her daughter before stepping back from the vehicle.

Brittany didn't move away from the vehicle, but remained leaning slightly on the door still blocking her partially from view, peering out at the unwelcome crowd like a wary meerkat, ready to dash back into the burrow's safety at the first sign of trouble. She looked to the front yard where her father was saying his last goodbyes to Brad, or was it Ben? Turning her attention to the dark haired girl, who was a year her junior, Brittany could tell by a glance the girl was not in a good mood. She was wearing a white tank top which had been cut off at an angle, frayed tassels from the jagged cuts brushing the exposed sweep of smooth tan skin, starting at her ribs on her left to just above her hip bone on her right. She wore light blue short shorts, and although Brittany had always sort of thought the girl dressed a little on the slutty side, like seriously, could she be showing any more skin if she tried? Brittany couldn't blame her today. Glancing to the clear white-blue sky Brittany was forced to accept that the sky was going to remain cloudless for the foreseeable future which meant the heat was only going to increase and, slutty or not, she found herself actually agreeing with the brunette's choice of attire for once. Maybe it was ingrained in the girls who had grown up here. Now that Brittany took the time to think about it, the girls in her school did tend to under-clothe themselves rather than over-clothe. Must be the heat, she figured.

As the sun beat down on her face, Brittany felt a few beads of sweat make their way from her brow, trailing down her left temple and along the side of her cheek, coolness following as the liquid evaporated off her skin. Regretting her choice of jeans immediately as she felt a whispered breeze caress her face, lifting a few loose strands of hair that had fallen from her pony during the morning and cooling what moisture the sun hadn't already stolen. She could feel her jeans constrict on her thighs and calves and she imagined the feel of the breeze cooling her legs, that is if she had opted for Hailey's fashion instead of her own.

At her mothers, oh so subtle, cough Brittany turned her attention back to Hailey, knowing her mother had caught her in a tangent. Hailey didn't look very impressed, she was staring blankly around the front yard and was frowning quite noticeably, even from a distance. Her arms were crossed against her chest, in stubborn defiance, and she had her hip cocked to one side as her feet shuffled aimlessly against the grass every few seconds. Obviously she was forced to be here against her will, a feeling Brittany was no stranger to. Just because her parents were all for making friends with absolutely everyone they came in contact with didn't mean that she was eager to become friends with their children. Her and Hailey had been in each others company constantly as both of their parents were fans of social barbeques. But even though they were thrown together almost weekly for the past few months of summer vacation, Brittany could only remember having a few conversations with the girl. It wasn't as if she didn't like the girl well enough, it was just that she wasn't interested in having any friends. It was easier with no attachments.

Hailey must have felt Brittany's eyes on her because she soon turned her attention away from the white fence surrounding the yard, which seemed the most interesting object in the girls vicinity even with the exuberant crowd surrounding her, to Brittany. Brittany raised her hand which had been resting on the door in front of her and gave Hailey a small wave. Hailey in seeming exasperation shot Brittany a confused glare. Sighing, Brittany shrugged her shoulders and jerked her head in a quick birdlike fashion towards her mother, who was watching the interaction between the two girls. As Hailey's eyes darted over to Mrs. Pierce and back to Brittany, understanding dawned on her, and she pulled her left arm out of where it was still crossed protectively across her chest and returned Brittany's wave.

Brittany then turned to her mother and gave her a toothy Cheshire cat grin before quickly dropping back into the vehicle and closing the door sharply behind her. Once safely inside she watched through the front window while her mother pursed her lips before giving up and turning to speak with the Muscles who were leaning up against the back of the van annoyed, obviously sharing Brittany's opinion about getting on the road.

Brittany pulled her iPod out of her purse beside her and quickly pressed play as she pushed the ear buds into her ears. As the rhythmic sounds filled her head, she closed her eyes and leaned back into the leather behind her. At first content in her little burrow, it didn't take long before she was well aware of the stifling hot air inside her 'safe haven' but she was not about to exit the vehicle again, if she sat here long enough her parents would get the clue to join her, she was sure. Instead, she opted to remove the thin button up pink tee that she had draped over her shoulders early that morning, leaving her in a plain white tank top. She smiled to herself, debating if she should imitate Hailey's look all together and rip her tank to match. Thinking better of it in the end she leaned back against the seat once more, wincing at the sharp burning sensation on her shoulders as scalding leather pressed against newly exposed, heat slicked, skin this time around.

She wasn't fully aware of how long she had been sitting alone, sweat trickling down not only her brow but her arms and chest as well, but somewhere between song four and five, she guessed, her mother slipped into the front seat and not long after that her father was seating himself behind the wheel. She felt more than heard the vehicle start up, engine rumbling from its slumber, and soon they were moving.

'Finally,' she thought, opening her eyes to turn the rear climate controls on high, the air conditioning taking a few minutes to turn cool, but as soon as the the vents breath switched from hot and humid to a slightly more bearable dry coolness, Brittany sighed and relaxed, still listening to her music, and closed her eyes once more.

After a few minutes and a couple turns, where Brittany's body was jostled back and forth, she opened her eyes and tilted her head towards the window. She watched disinterested in the houses they passed. A couple of the yards had people mowing their sun burnt grass or working in their gardens. Some had younger children running around and playing on the front lawns, but most yards were vacant. She didn't blame the people who were more than likely staying in their cool homes, it was boiling out today. As they came to the stop sign at the end of the street, Brittany turned to look out the back window where the moving van was following, the skin on her shoulders ripping slightly as they came unstuck from the leather seat and Brittany gasped at the unpleasant feeling. She saw the two men in the cab, one obviously driving and the other was leaning back in his seat with his eyes shut.

As their SUV took off again Brittany turned her attention to look out the side window once more. They were passing by her high school, well, former high school she supposed. Through the distorting heat haze she could make out many kids crowding the grounds. Some of the jocks were playing catch with a football and other students were sitting under the trees talking in groups, all seemed to be smiling and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Brittany frowned before looking down at her watch, 12:04, lunch break was in full swing.

Brittany briefly wondered why Hailey was even at her house to say goodbye when she obviously should have been in class, but remembering the look on the girls face she remembered she had had no choice. No wonder the girl was upset, today was Friday. Missing a Friday at school pretty much guaranteed you were missing at least one invite to a party. And Hailey never missed a party, well not a popular one at least. Brittany herself had never been to one, and had only been invited to three that she could remember. Something, that if had happened to anyone else would have been social suicide for them. In fact the bottom of the totem pole hierarchy, or geeks of the school, she was sure, had been to at least one party each. But Brittany was becoming a master at blending in at school, a chameleon. Middle of the pack in almost everything, she had stayed out of the gutters enough to garner her a couple invites to parties but had already come up with a fool proof excuse as to why she could not attend. That and her ability to be friendly enough in classes, without speaking overly much, to not pigeon hole her as a weirdo and loner with no friends, assured she stayed out of the popular kids way when they targeted the lesser beings of the school.

Sure she felt bad about how the geeks were treated, it wasn't fun to watch as they were shoved into lockers or called four-eyes and such, and if she was being completely honest with herself, seeing the tears in those students eyes did pull at something inside her, but what was she to do about it. Confronting the jocks about it would only take away her anonymity, which incidentally was her safety. How was her joining their ranks going to help them anyway? Besides she always knew that she would be gone in a few months, so why bother trying to change anything.

She briefly wondered what her new school was going to be like before she snorted in derision. She noticed her mom turn to look at her as she did so and she waved her hand as if to say 'forget it', before returning to her thoughts. Her new school would be just as superficial as the last three high schools she'd attended. Popular kids at the top included the jocks and cheerleaders, if the school had a cheer program. Geeks, nerds and just plain different kids at the bottom where they were kept in their place by said popular kids. And in the middle were the invisibles. Invisible was the safe zone and the only thing that Brittany had to worry about now was to make sure she started out at her new school as one of those invisibles, which was going to be more difficult this time around. Her last transfer had occurred during Christmas break so she had started a new semester, being able to blend in without too much trouble. This time she was arriving two weeks into the new school year, the worst time to enter into the jungle that was high school. She wished that they had moved earlier, prior to the school year starting, but that was too hopeful. Even a few weeks later would have been better. But two weeks in, everyone was still on edge. The popular kids would be back and throwing themselves into tormenting the underclassmen just to assert their place on top, a reminder of how things worked. The new students would have found some potential friends and at this point would be trying their hardest to keep them. And scared newcomers who were desperate to not be pigeon-holed as losers at a new school could be scarier and were definitely more vicious than cheerleaders if their positions were threatened.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she noticed they were coming up to the highway. She always made it a point to remember this part of their moves, the coming and going. It was how she marked the passing of time, new chapters in her life weren't separated by years, birthdays or classes, but by cities and towns. 'Bye Bye Fort Worth, Texas. Here I come Lima, Ohio.'


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay, first of all, thank you to everyone who followed and chose to favorite this story. Being in such the early stages, being a favorite already is pretty cool. Anyway this chapter is dedicated to Doodle91xxx, who was my first and incidentally only reviewer. Thanks, feedback is always appreciated and I enjoy hearing what you all think. Although following and adding me to favorites kind of tells me what you are thinking anyway. I'm not gonna beg for reviews. I'm happy that anyone is enjoying what I write, even if silently. So on with the show I suppose._

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The change in speed of the vehicle was what woke Brittany from her nap. Her iPod was still playing and a heavy beat was vibrating though her head. Her parents could never figure out how she could relax with that kind of music blaring, let alone sleep as it was directly connected to her head. Brittany stopped trying to explain it to her parents. When ever they brought it up by telling her she was going to go deaf by the time she was twenty-five, or shaking their head whenever a particularly loud beat emerged from her play list, she just shrugged her shoulders and ignored them. They couldn't understand that music, of any kind, relaxed her, soft melodies or head-banging guitar or drum solos. She couldn't find the words to tell them that the reason it calmed her was that the beats already swam inside her, under her skin. They seemed to flow through her constantly, like blood, life-giving.

She didn't know how to tell them that hearing the music awakened the same thing inside of her, she felt complete. It sounded insane, even to her, and she didn't need another reason to have people look at her like she was from a different planet. Not that her parents ever did, but she knew she wasn't quite as socially accepted as other kids her age. A fact that continued to justify her decision to remain as nameless as possible throughout their stays in different places. Who wants to leave a city with the reputation of being a weirdo?

She noticed they were pulling up to a gas station and as she looked down at her watch she saw it was a little after eight o'clock. She'd fallen asleep shortly after their last gas station fill up, noticing that the scenery on this particular stretch of road was very boring, everything looked the same. Same trees spotting the side of the road every few yards, same pattern of crops planted on and on again: corn, wheat, canola, peas, corn, wheat, canola, peas. She was slightly surprised that she had managed to sleep a whole four hours, though. Her attention turned to her parents in the front, her mother was leaning over to talk to her father and immediately Brittany pulled the ear buds out of her ears. Her hearing took a second to adjust to the lack of beat and simultaneously the thrumming under her skin subsided. Her mother was talking low and Brittany was straining to hear what her parents were saying.

"You can talk normal, you know? I'm awake now." Brittany said leaning forward a little. Her parents both turned to look back at her and smiled.

"Finally," her dad breathed, an exaggerated sigh escaping his lips. "We thought you had died and were just discussing how we were going to dispose of your body." He narrowed his eyes teasingly, the green of his pupils hidden behind his lashes.

"Daaad," she whined, both of her parents chuckling.

"Actually, Sweatheart, we were just discussing the plans for the night." Her mother spoke up taking pity on her daughter, and when her husband opened his mouth, most likely to tease Brittany again, she slapped his shoulder good-naturedly.

"I thought the plan was to drive though the night so that we reached Lima bean in the morning." Brittany responded confused. Both parents paused at her name for the city they were heading to, but both chose to ignore it rather than have Brittany try to explain.

"Well that was the plan when we left," her father spoke up again. "But seeing as how I have been driving for eight hours now and your mother can barely hold her eyes open." he gave his wife a pointed look before turning his gaze back to his daughter. "We are going to have to find a hotel somewhere so we can both rest."

"Oh come off it, John. I couldn't get any sleep the sun was so bright." her mother scoffed in retort.

"I slept!" Brittany spoke up excitedly, trying to lean in between the two front seats, only to be jerked backwards when the seat belt restraining her reached its limit.

"How wonderful, Dear," her mother teased, "But you could sleep through a hurricane in the middle of the ocean. I can't."

Brittany shook her head, but became slightly dizzy at the rapid motion so had to stop. She rubbed her shoulder that had taken the full force of impact from the seat belt. "No, I mean I can drive for awhile while you guys get some rest."

"No." both her parents responded at the same time, causing Brittany to slump back into her seat, pouting.

"Why not?" She asked. "You guys said I was a good driver." She heard both her parents sighs before they answered her.

"You are Bumblebee." her father stated and Brittany felt torn between the smile she was fighting to suppress at the childhood nickname and the irritation she was feeling due to being treated like a child. "But you just got your license not too long ago and these are unfamiliar roads." he tried to explain, but changed tactics as Brittany continued to frown dejectedly. "Besides who would be able to get any rest with you behind the wheel swerving across the lanes and bopping your head to that God awful stuff you call music."

Brittany's smile finally broke through and she couldn't help but roll her eyes at the faux-terrified look her father was giving her while his right hand was held firmly over his heart in 'fear'.

Smiling, her parents both jump out of the vehicle, her mother going into the store to pay for the gas that the pimply faced attendant was currently pumping into their car outside Brittany's window, and her dad to go talk with the two moving guys in the red van gassing up behind them.

Brittany debated if she should go into the store after her mother. A snack would be good, she already ate her way through her candy stashed in her purse hours ago and needed another fix. And she did need to use the bathroom, but thought maybe it was better waiting until they found a hotel room. Gas station restrooms could be the most dangerously disgusting places on earth. And judging from Pimpleface's grungy uniform, that obviously hadn't been washed in days, to his blond hair that was so greasy it stuck out from his head in matted chunks, having nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of hair care product, the bathrooms were going to be on the scary side in this establishment. In fact, as she continued to observe the boy, Brittany was sure that if any product was to touch Pimpleface's head, all his hair would fall out from sheer shock of the unknown substance. Brittany giggled out loud at the thought and continued to stare at the boy, imagining a bald head, which caused her to laugh all the more, picturing his wildly bushy eyebrows being the only hair on his head, looking like one of the funny faced Easter eggs she used to draw when younger.

She was brought out of her fit by a tapping noise against her window. Frowning in confusion she wiped the tears from her eyes and stifled another giggle fit at remembering what had caused them. She looked out her window to see said Pimpleface staring in at her with a smile on his face. He was so close Brittany could see the condensation forming on the window as he breathed and the proximity startled her, even with the pane of glass and locked door between them, she jumped back a few inches. His smile grew a little more and he waved through the glass at her. Confused and startled she looked at her hands in her lap as she wrung them together, blushing in embarrassment at having him catch her laughing at him. She heard another tap and looked back up at the boy. He pointed down to the ground and she scrunched her nose, not understanding. He then put his hand in a small fist and moved it in a circular motion and tapped the window again. Oh! He wanted her to roll the window down. She briefly thought back to his hand gestures and thought how weird it was that someone could still understand the sign for rolling windows down when manual windows were pretty much obsolete.

Not allowing her mind to wander like usual she looked to the front and noticed her dad had left the keys in the ignition and debated if she should roll the window down or not. Was he going to lecture her on her inappropriate behavior of laughing at him? But then she remembered all he had seen was her laughing, he couldn't know why, right? Not unless he could read minds. She looked back at him, still waiting, slightly more impatiently than a few moments ago and decided not to be rude, plus he didn't seem like the mind reading type. His head was the wrong shape after all. She unbuckled her belt and leaned in between the two front seats, bracing her weight with one hand on the center console and reached with her other to turn the key so that the dash lights blinked on and the radio started playing soft music before retreating to her own seat again.

Turning to the window she caught the boy's eyes and noticed his slightly glazed expression and far off look. She pushed the window button and the glass screeched slightly on the dry rubber before silently continuing its way down. The noise caused the boy to jump a little and Brittany saw him shake his head slightly before a blush crept up the pasty skin of his neck and over his cheeks, spotted acne blotches darkening most noticeably, lighting up like a switchboard. It only took Brittany a second to realize why he was embarrassed and she frowned at the thought of him looking at her like he obviously had been. She suddenly wanted to roll the window back up and continue to ignore him but he had already started to speak.

"Hey," His voice cracked slightly, rising to an awkward high pitch at the end, and he coughed into his hand to clear his throat. Brittany waited for more, but the boy seemed to not want to continue. He looked over to where she knew her dad was still speaking with the Muscles and then turned back to her.

"Hi," she said simply, and he smiled again holding his hand out to her. Her hand twitched on her lap, obviously used to accepting the offer. Her parents had raised her to be polite and a hand thrust out in greeting needed to be shook. But looking at his oily, dirt caked hands and remembering it was the same hand he had so recently coughed into wasn't making her eager to shake and the way he had leered at her wasn't helping her want to be polite either. "Uh," she started, trying to think of an excuse as to why she was not accepting his hand. "I broke my finger." What? Seriously? That was the best she could come up with? Out of all the excuses in the world, word vomit was the winning card she'd pulled out of her repertoire. But it was out so she would have to go with it. Forcing herself to swallow her groan at her own stupid response she looked up at his hand then his face.

"Excuse me?" he asked and this time his voice remained deep and even. Judging by his constipated expression, he was deeply confused by her response.

"I broke my finger and it kind of hurts, being broken and all." she reaffirmed. "So I can't shake your hand. Sorry." And she put on her best apologetic look in hopes that he wouldn't catch her in a lie.

"Oh... Oh well that's okay then. Names Dan." He leaned his arm along the top of the vehicle and pushed his other equally disgusting hand out instead. "How about this then?" he asked smugly. leaning his head and arm into the vehicle. Brittany surreptitiously bit the inside of her cheek, leaning back a little, trying to weasel her way out of the same situation, with a different lie. Ugh, she hated lying on the spot and she really, really wished she had just went into the store with her mom or had at the very least not rolled the window down, no matter if it was rude or not. She breathed in through her nose as her teeth were still occupied with her cheek and nearly gagged. He smelled of a mixture of gas and oil and stale body odour. her mouth flew open so she could breathe but all that did was cause her to taste the staleness, sour on her tongue. She needed to get out of the car, or for him to back away, but she somehow still didn't want to be mean.

"Handshakes don't count if you use the other hand." She blurted using what breath was left in her lungs. "It's bad luck." How did she even think of that when her brain was deprived of clean oxygen? Brittany gave herself a mental pat on the back as his arm retracted back outside of the vehicle. He kept his head slightly through the open window, but Brittany was able to breath again, his musk only slightly invading her senses, not overpowering like previously. He was still smiling so she figured he must not be upset with her response.

"Well, wouldn't want to jinx this now would we?" he asked as he gave her a wink.

Grossest wink ever.

Brittany tried to look past him to see either of her parents but failed, seeing from her peripheral that her dad wasn't with the moving men anymore. In fact the moving van was pulling out of the gas station, Muscles having switched places so as to continue on down the road without them.

"Jinx what?" she asked, stalling until she could figure out how to get out of this mess.

"Us." He stated simple and slightly arrogantly if Brittany had any guess at his behavior, which she was usually good at determining. Studying people was a hobby and she could read body language pretty well. A twitch of hand here, a slightly exaggerated swallow there, stiff shoulders, relaxed spine, eye contact and physical distances kept as well as voice inflections were all signs that meant something. But then she didn't know him very well and maybe they just sounded arrogant when they spoke around here. Small town in the middle of nowhere. Maybe arrogance was like an accent, changes subtly with location.

"Uh..." She couldn't think of anything to say, again. Her brain was blank because she had never been in this situation before. She'd been asked out to dances or dates before, of course. She might be one of the invisibles but she wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that she was one of the more attractive invisibles. But she had always been prepared before. High school boys were either super arrogant and went after the popular girls before slumming it with the girls on Brittany's social level, only after the cheerleaders had sufficiently rejected and embarrassed them, or they were super shy and Brittany could sense a week or more in advance by the stares and subtle ways they made excuses to always be outside a certain class at a certain time to stare at her from across the hall. She had always had an excuse or escape route planned way ahead of time, but now she was stuck in her family's car and very uncomfortable and couldn't think of a response.

"Give me your number." It wasn't a question and Brittany decided it wasn't just an accent, this boy was arrogant. Weird, maybe greasy was the new sexy in this town.

"Excuse me?" Brittany asked sharply, getting fed up.

"I'll text you when I'm on my way. You can meet me outside and I'll show you a good time" he shrugged, holding out his phone.

"I don't live here, we are just passing through." furrowing her brow she wondered how a guy in a town as small as this doesn't notice a 'just passing through' girl.

"I know. I heard your dad say that you were gonna stay the night here in town. We only have one motel so I know where you'll be. I'll text you and we can go for a ride." He shrugged again and shoved the phone closer towards Brittany. She took it just to get his hand away from her face, but couldn't stop thinking how creepy stalkerish this guy was being.

"Ride?" She hoped with everything in her that he didn't wink at her again or give her a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. She was sure she would literally throw up if that were to happen.

"Yeah" His voice was proud as he took a step back from the vehicle and pointed to the side of the station where a bright red bike was sitting directly under the spot light beside the station. Brittany's eyes bulged as they scanned the piece of machinery, the light around the station highlighting the curves and sharp angles. It was definitely sexy as hell and if this dude really owned it then his arrogance was founded. Greasy hair, body odour and pimple face be damned. In a small town like this that beautiful bike would definitely entitle him to a few girls of his choice. His attention returned to her and he must have noticed the look on her face because if it was even possible he smiled more smugly, predatory like a jackal tormenting its victim before devouring.

Leaning over through the window again he simple asked. "What time should I pick you up?"

For a space of a few moments Brittany stared from the bike to Dan. She never wanted to get on a bike more than she did at that moment. She had, once upon a time, competed in Motocross events and had been getting quite good. But that was when they had stayed in place for over a year and a half, before she stopped trying to make friends. But she had quit once they had moved from Alabama years ago. Not wanting to drag her gear around the country and compete only when they weren't moving, which was all the time, so she had her dad sell it, saying she was getting sick of it anyway. But the thought of getting on that bike was tempting. Dan reached through the window and rested his hand on her arm, squeezing slightly. A shiver coursed through her body at his unwelcome touch. Her skin crawled, and not in the pleasant way it responded to music.

"It's not dangerous." He obviously took her actions the wrong way. "I won't let you fall or get hurt. I'm very gentle." His voice dropped an octave and Brittany knew that he was using his sexy voice even though it came off as anything but.

And just like that the picture in her mind of having the wind whip her hair as she opened the bike up on the highway came crashing down around her. There is no way Dan would trust her to take the bike out on her own and there is no way she could picture sitting on that bike while wrapping her arms around his waist, especially with her body wholly rejecting him as it was. Her dream shattered into tiny fragments and she quickly handed his phone back to him. Relief spread through her as he removed his hand from her arm and she couldn't help it, she subtlety wiped her arm on the car door beside her trying to tame her irate skin. He looked down at the screen of his phone and smiled, just as the bell above the stations entrance chimed. They both looked over to her parents exiting and making their way back to the vehicle. Dan stepped back from the side of the SUV and looked quickly at Brittany once more.

"Bye, Hailey. I'll see you later tonight." He stated before walking away to help another car that just pulled into the station.

"What's that smile for?" Her mother asked as she approached the vehicle, glancing from Dan's retreating form, to Brittany.

"Nothing, just thinking of what Lima is like." It wasn't a complete lie. Earlier that day she had been thinking of that exact thing. But to tell her mom what had just occurred made her smile falter. She wasn't so sure her mother would agree that her small prank was indeed funny.

It didn't take long for them to get to the motel, which was only a few small blocks from the gas station. The building and grounds were nothing spectacular to look at. The red brick building sat in an 'L' shape and a row of trees and bushes completed the horse shoe shaped design, wrapping around the parking lot. It was two stories in height and was rather dull looking, although seemed to be well taken care of from the outside. The white of the doors must have had a recent coat, as there weren't any visible paint chips, and all the numbers on the doors were accounted for. For all it's lackluster appearance it did have a calm and welcoming feel, the same as what Brittany remembered feeling when they went to visit her grandmother, before she had died. She could imagine a nice older couple running this place, eager to meet travelers and learn their stories, old people were like that. Either they would tell stories in abundance or couldn't get enough of others telling them some.

Brittany slipped out of the SUV as soon as the ignition was cut off and jogged around to the back as her father walked into the office to book them in. Her mother joined her as Brittany opened the rear hatch to grab their overnight bags. Even though they had planned on traveling through the night, and therefore would not have planned to need them, they always packed them and kept them close while moving. Well they had ever since their old car had broken down in the middle of nowhere, leaving them with no change of clothes or bathroom accessories. It had taken them four days to get their car fixed at a road side service station. Thankfully the owners had been genial and lent them some clothing and let them stay in a spare bedroom, but none of them were keen to repeat the experience again. They loved each other but being in such close proximity with no escape had worn on all their nerves.

They waited beside the vehicle until her father emerged from the office with two room keys. He handed one to Brittany, who took it gratefully and made her way across the parking lot to her room.

Ever since hitting high school her parents had insisted she get her own room in any hotels on vacations or during moves. They had said something about helping it assert her independence from them or something. She had always thought it was pointless. She had always seen herself as independent. She was a loner, wasn't that the epitome of independence? She loved her parents, more than anything, but she knew there were many things she kept from them, she wasn't hopelessly dependent on them, but she wasn't about to refuse her own hotel room if offered. Let them believe what they wanted.

She unlocked and opened the door with her room key and quickly closed the door behind her, throwing her overnight bag on the beige, stiff-looking, chair to her right. She flipped the switch on the wall above the hideous chair and the room was filled with light. The scent of fabric and dust wafted through her senses. Not a particularly inviting smell, but at least she wasn't being attacked by smoke or body odour.

The bed was neatly made, she noticed, as she made her way across the room to the bathroom on the far side. She glanced in at the small room, after turning on the light, and was met with bright off white walls and floor. The mirror and glass shower door were spot free and the garbage and toilet were both empty. She couldn't count the number of times she had found something in each. And things in those particular spots tended to be body function related. Satisfied at the cleanliness she spun around and quickly made her way to her abandoned bag. Swinging the bag onto her shoulder, she slipped out of her shoes and made her way back to the bathroom, shuffling her feet on the carpet as she went.

Brittany set her bag on the counter beside the sink before turning the shower on to heat up. She auto-piloted through taking her shampoo, conditioner and soaps out, setting them all on the ledge inside the glass cubicle. Steam was already creeping out through the open door, snaking across the tiles and Brittany smiled at the thought of the warm water hitting her skin. It only took her a few moments to lift up and toss her tank top, not caring where it landed, before she bent down to peel her jeans off her legs. She had to struggle for a few moments to shimmy the fabric down her thighs. She cursed the material pasted to her skin and swore she would never wear jeans in the heat again. She let out a squeal of victory as they finally dropped past her knees, but her victory was short lived as she almost face planting on the tile floor trying to rip the jeans off one leg by stepping on the hem with one foot and trying to pull her foot out. She should have foreseen the material being as hard to slip off her calves as it had been her thighs. As it was, she barely managed to keep herself upright by grabbing onto the towel bar. Straightening up, she hopped on one foot and then the other as she pulled the jeans from each ankle with her hands. Quickly shedding her black boy shorts and bra she leapt into the shower.

It took a few moments for her skin to become accustomed to the heat, being warmer than she had intended, but soon she felt her muscles start to relax. She spent a few minutes letting the spray massage the soreness from her back, rolling her shoulders to relieve some of the tension.

Two years. Just two short years and then she would be graduated. She would be in college, alone, without her parents. She didn't know if it was normal or not, to be excited and wary at the same time. She wasn't planning on switching colleges every few months, it had been hard enough on her high school grade point average, transferring all the time. Staying in one place was what excited her. She'd been to and seen so many things in so many different states and she wouldn't take back those experiences. It was just the excitement of having a favorite coffee shop, a favorite book store or a place she could go to to think, her own private spot, that had her smiling at the thought. Changing locations hadn't allowed her to find those things yet and in two years she would be free to search. But she was wary also, not scared, no matter what her parents thought she wasn't dependent on them. She was worried about what her staying in one spot would mean. She was fine with the idea of not living with her parents anymore, it was the thought of them continuing to move, further away. Where months would pass before she would see them. She didn't necessarily need them around twenty-four seven, but the idea of having no one around cast a shadow on her perfect day dream.

Only when the water began to cool did she realize how long she must have stayed in that position. She hurriedly finished her shower, washing and untangling her hair and scrubbing the dried sweat from her skin. Stepping out of the shower, she haphazardly dried herself with her own towel she always packed in her bag and hung it up to dry as she slipped into a clean tank and shorts to sleep in.

She'd only had enough time to find the outlet behind the small night stand and plug her phone in before a knock interrupted her. She walked over and immediately opened the door, only thinking once the door was half ajar that it might be Dan. He did know they were staying in town and seriously there were only fifteen rooms to go through in the motel. Luckily her mother's smile was what greeted her on the other side.

"Hey" she brushed past Brittany while holding up a plain brown bag. "Dad and I ran to the diner down the road. Brought you a doggy bag. You must be starving."

It wasn't until her mother had stepped into the room and Brittany could smell the food in the bag that she did realize that she was hungry. After all, she hadn't really had anything substantial since breakfast that morning.

Brittany closed the door behind her mother and followed her to the small table near the foot of the bed. She watched as patiently as she could as her mother opened the bag and pulled out a styrofoam container. Without waiting for her to open it, Brittany grabbed the container from her mother's grip and jumped onto the bed, crossing her legs and setting the food in front of her on the covers, bouncing slightly on the mattress in giddiness. Licking her lips she quickly opened the lid and her stomach actually growled at the sight and smell of the home made cheese burger and fries.

Brittany was already on her second bite of the delicious, mouth-watering burger before she remembered her mother was still in the room. She turned to face her, mid-bite and ducked her head shyly at the amused look on her mothers face. Mrs. Pierce only chuckled at her daughter's antics and crossed the room to sit in the chair by the door, obviously not caring if it appeared to be made of the hardest, scratchiest material invented.

They sat in silence for a few minutes as Brittany continued eating. Only when Brittany started to slow the intake of food did her mother speak.

"Are you excited to see what Lima is like?"

Brittany finished chewing the fry in her mouth and closed the lid on the left over food before answering. "I don't know." Her voice was flat. "It's just another town in another state. We've never been to Ohio so I guess it should be kind of interesting to see what it's like." Shrugging her shoulders she picked up the food container and stretched to place it on the table before sitting back down, facing her mother.

"Brittany," frowning her mother stood and moved the short distance to the bed, sitting beside her. "This time is different," she explained, grabbing one of Brittany's hands. "This isn't just another move. We aren't going to pack up and leave in a few months."

Brittany's eyes wandered around the simple room again, looking for a distraction, but the furnishings were bare of anything to use as an excuse to capture her attention. She suddenly regretted not turning the television on when she entered the room. Defeated she realized this conversation was going to occur with or without her consent. This wasn't the first time she had heard this speech and it wasn't going to be the last, she was sure. Every move had started out with those words and within a year her dad had been given a better job offer elsewhere. She didn't blame her father, he was just trying to make a better life, and future, for her and her mother. Every move meant an increased income, and she was grateful for that, she really was. It was just, she wished they would stop saying the next time would be different, because she knew better. And her family wasn't hard up for cash. They weren't loaded but they could definitely afford the comforts. How many more promotions did he need before he was satisfied? She turned to face her mother again when she felt pressure on her hand.

"He promised."

Such a simple statement. Two words, and just like that everything did change. Brittany's brow furrowed and she looked at their entwined hands.

"He did?" It was soft and her mother had to lean in slightly and let the words sink in before she answered.

"Yes, no more moves until you are at least graduated."

It was silent for a long time as Brittany processed the new information. Yes, she had been told things would be different before. She was told that they would stay in the next city for at least 'x' amount of years, only to be disappointed. But her father had never promised these things before. He only made promises that he could and would keep if at all possible. He wasn't the kind of man to make idle promises and then simply sweep them under the rug when they could not be fulfilled. In fact, he had only made Brittany a total of four her entire life. And never once had he broken one.

"Two years." she whispered, doing the math in her head and even though it wasn't said as a question her mother answered.

"Yes, two years for you to be a kid."

"I'm not a kid" Brittany replied harsher than she meant to but glancing at her mothers soft smile, she realized her mother wasn't trying to tease her. "I'm fine. Really, I'm okay with th-"

"You have no friends." She dead-panned. "Honey, I know you think its fine and normal to live like this, but it's not. You should be doing all the things other kids get to do. Go to dances and football games with friends. Have a couple of actual relationships. We want you to stop hiding who you are and just be yourself."

"And what if this is who I really am? I may not be comfortable with the way things are but I am comfortable with who I am." Who wants to leave a city with the reputation of being a weirdo? They'd judge her. Invisibility was safe. Anonymity was protection. Her five year old self emerged and reminded her of how cruel and prone to betrayal others were. Kids were all the same, whether in kindergarten or high school, they'd judge and they'd throw you under the bus.

"If that's what you really believe, then maybe these next couple years can be used to help you find yourself again." Her mother stood from the bed, lightly squeezing and dropping Brittany's hand before making her way to the exit. "Your father and I just want others to see the person we get to see. You're better than the person you keep trying to be."

What did that even mean? Weren't people supposed to try to better themselves. Isn't that what growing up was about, trying to change something you didn't like about yourself until you succeeded. If you were mean, try to be nicer. If you were selfish, try to do things for others. If you were shy, try to break out of your normal routine.

If you were stupid, try to be smarter.

Brittany got up, noticing her mother had left and turned all the lights off before sliding between the sheets on the bed. While setting her alarm on her phone she noticed she had a text from Hailey.

_'Thanks a lot. How about next time you do the NORMAL thing and give a fake number to go with the fake name. You're just lucky I never bothered to give him your actual digits.'_

Brittany laid back after sending a quick apology text to her former neighbour. Resting her head on one of the hard pillows at the headboard, and closed her eyes. She had always pictured the day she went off to college. the day she entered campus with all the other students. Everyone on the same level. No one would have the advantage over another, because it would be a new experience for all of them. That was when she had imagined she might be able to stop being one of the invisibles. Maybe she could even learn to be 'normal' as Hailey had mentioned. She had always used their family's constant moves as an excuse, a time frame. When the moves stopped so would her hiding. Because even though she had just argued about it, she was hiding, at least partially.

But he promised. Two years.

What was two years in comparison to the rest of her life? Just a slightly longer stay-over than the rest.

Nothing had changed. Come Monday, she would follow her original plan. Two years was nothing, she'd already planned for that long. The only difference being that she would only have to acclimate herself this one more time.

Invisibility was safe. Anonymity was protection.


	3. Chapter 3

_Okay, I know this is a little on the short side and was originally going to post it in combination with the next chapter, but it was getting pretty long and I think I want the next chapter to stand on it's own. I am going to post the next chapter soon as it is already written, just needs me to go through it and to some grammar and spell check before posting. Also since it is a kind of important chapter I wanted to get a little more written past it's ending to see if it was going to work with the rest of the story as I had decided to change a bit of it. Well I guess you will maybe see what I'm talking about in a few days when it gets posted._

_I would like to thank, again, everyone who decided to follow and favorite this story, It is greatly appreciated. Special shout outs go to guest, Audge, Unicornclouds and of course hlnwst. Thank you all for taking the time to review._

_**hlnwst**__: Thanks for the compliment. That part about the music was actually the easiest part about that chapter to write, but I've found that some of the best writing comes out of not trying so hard. Anyway sorry this doesn't yet have Brittany in a highschool setting, but I hope that you are satisfied with it none the less._

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They rolled into Lima later than expected the next night. Halfway through the day her mother had decided they should make a road trip of it, stopping at any and all landmarks along the way. The giant ball of twine was exciting, and getting her picture taken with a dairy cow that had a spot in the shape of Elvis was something Brittany was definitely going to cherish. Yeah, sure. And If it wasn't her mother pointing out different land marks to slow them down it was her father making pit stops frequently along the way to refill his coffee mug. Brittany was almost resigned to staying again in another motel for the night when she saw a sign, 'Lima 53 miles' and let a long breath escape her lips in relief.

Her parents had been singing road trip songs for the past hour and a half and, even after she turned up her own music from her iPod, Brittany was still able to hear them. They were too busy arguing about whether or not her dad had skipped the twenty-third bottle of beer when they drove past their exit, not having noticed the GPS lady's voice telling them to turn. Her parents stopped bickering the moment they realized what had happened and paid closer attention to the road. At the next exit, when the GPS told them to turn, her father obeyed.

Brittany sat up from her previous slouched position, anxious. Her first glimpse of Lima was not one that impressed her. It was dark out, the overcast skies blotting out any and all light from the moon and stars above. But Brittany was still able to make out enough of the houses they past, from the rarely lit porch lights or the few working street lamps, to tell the buildings were falling apart and junk littered the yards. The lawns across the expanse of front yards were overgrown in places and dead, nonexistent, in others, a scraggly patchwork, like what teen boys sported with first attempts at growing facial hair.

The GPS lady zig-zaged them through the unkempt neighbourhood until they reached a main street, or so Brittany thought. This street had a whole three sets of traffic lights instead of upside down hanging stop or yield signs, although the graffiti didn't lessen any. Brittany watched out her window as the houses turned into a mixture of apartment buildings and businesses. There was a grocery store on one corner and as Brittany turned her head to look out the opposite window she spotted a closed cigarette stand and a liquor store where there were a handful of people leaning against the wall next to the entrance. They were passing a few bottles around their group, not having the initiative to go anywhere after their purchases. Some were older, scruffy looking individuals, others were young, and one looked to be maybe twelve or thirteen, which caused Brittany to frown in disappointment. She wasn't sure if she should be upset at the kid for throwing away his future or his parents, if he had any, or society for allowing it. But soon the group was out of sight as Brittany and her parents continued on, causing Brittany's mind to wander to other things as she observed their route.

Passing another crowd of obviously drunk men in their late teens to early twenties, Brittany slowly reached over and pressed the lock button on her door. She was sure no one would try anything, but she figured she would rather be safe than sorry.

She was so preoccupied with watching a bunch of teens busting a move on the corner next to her, as they were stopped at a red light, that she didn't hear her mom calling her name. Some of those kids weren't half bad, their movements obviously weren't schooled but the rough steps were intriguing. They took turns in small groups or individually showing off to the exuberant cheers and jeers of their audience. The second time her mother called her name, Brittany tore her eyes from the group.

"Yeah," she turned down her music so she could hear.

"I was just saying, not to worry. This is not the neighbourhood we will be living in." Her mother stated reassuringly, looking out her own window in cautious observation.

Brittany gave a soft hum in answer to let her mother know she had been listening before turning her music up again, even louder than before. She never took her eyes away from the window. She was glad that they weren't living in this area and was thankful the entirety of Lima was not like this but she was intrigued to say the least. For a smaller population, having a sector of town this sketchy was rare in her experience.

Brittany had seen her walk out of the alley probably the same time as her father, if the horn and brake squealing was any indication. Brittany was thrown forward and her raised arm came in contact with the back of her mother's seat before her belt locked and for the second time in two days her shoulder was jerked painfully. When the car came to a stop and Brittany was thrown back into the leather of her seat she was able to look up through the front windshield. Her previously racing heart skipped a beat as her eyes took in the stranger through the glass, her breath hitched before she felt her heart rate pick up again, even faster than before. Brittany briefly wondered if she should be worried, hearts weren't supposed to spasm like that, were they?

The girl was turned towards their car and she slapped her palms against the hood, hard, before taking a step back. Her wide, dark eyes narrowed as her surprise was replaced with what Brittany assumed was anger, if the girl's rapidly moving mouth and waving hands were any indication. It wasn't the anger in the girls demeanor that had captured Brittany's attention, the fact that the girl was down right, drop dead gorgeous definitely made an impact. The girl had long dark hair, it looked black in dim light provided by the street lamps, but it very well could have been a dark shade of brown. She was wearing a tight fitting green dress and her shoulders were covered by an elbow length leather jacket. Her silver bracelet and the hoops in her ears swayed rapidly as she put her whole body into showing her displeasure at almost being run over, even if it had been her own fault for dashing out of a dark alley right in front of them.

Brittany, who had been staring at the girl's moving lips wondering if they were actually as full as they seemed or if it was just a trick of the lighting, finally noticed why she was not hearing the girls displeasure and quickly pulled the music from her ears.

"-or Fuck sakes, learn to drive, old man. Jesus." She hit the car again with one hand, making Brittany jump, before she continued her way across the street and waving her hand in a dismissive gesture, still ranting. "Might want to follow that fancy ass device called a GPS that your shiny car must be equipped with. Get yourselves outta Lima Heights afores someone decides to car jack your dumb asses."

Brittany, again forgetting she was strapped in, tried to lean across the seat to watch the girl in her dramatic departure, but quickly remembered as a sharp pain shot through her shoulder at the pressure of her locked seat belt digging into her rapidly forming bruise. She quickly shrugged the shoulder strap off and was able to lean over enough to catch a glimpse of the dark haired girl. Without the cars front bumper in the way Brittany was able to see that the girls dress only fell mid thigh and her black heeled boots rose to just below her knees. Brittany's eyes traveled up the girls form and she noticed how the only skin the girl allowed to show was her forearms and the small space from her boots to the hem of her dress, not that the dress hid much of the girls figure being so tightly fitted. As Brittany's eyes reached the sleek dark waves of hair the girl must have sensed Brittany's gaze, without looking back she raised one hand, middle finger sticking up over her shoulder, just as she hopped up onto the opposite curb.

That was the last view Brittany had of her as she disappeared into a group hanging outside of what looked to be a club or bar. Dissolving out of existence as quickly as she'd appeared and Brittany wondered if she wasn't an apparition of some kind, maybe an angel. Her dad huffed and continued forward and as they came in line with the alley the feisty beauty came out of, something caught Brittany's eye. She swiveled her head around and straightened up in her seat so fast she almost smashed her forehead against the glass of her window, misjudging the distance.

Coming out of the same alley was a man. It was too dark to tell his age from his face but his mohawk was quite visible so Brittany assumed he wasn't much older than herself, no one far out of high school could pull off that look, right? As he passed briefly under a lamp, Brittany caught a glimpse of him pulling the zipper up on his jeans, and caught a flash of a smile on his lips before he passed further down the darkened street. As her father sped up a little faster, Brittany turned to look out the back window, eyes darting from the man's retreating figure to the group where she had lost sight of the dark haired girl. Frowning, she turned back around and sagged back into her seat.

She wasn't sure why she was so bothered by what she had seen. She wasn't even sure about what she had seen. Maybe the girl had just been taking a shortcut to the club through the alley. Maybe the mohawk man had just so happened to be relieving himself at the same time. Yeah, he was just peeing behind a dumpster and the girl had run past him, into the street, in a hurry to get away from the scene. Brittany sighed. Or the couple had been doing exactly what it looked like they were doing.

Couple? It didn't really seem like they were together, having gone their separate ways so quickly after their activities. If they were a couple wouldn't he have entered the club with her? Or shouldn't she have left with him? Maybe it was just a quickie. Brittany heard of people going out, getting drunk and hooking up at random parties to relieve stress. She wasn't surprised to hear of the conquests the guys in her high schools had made after a party filled weekend, and she even realized many girls did the same thing. But after relieving said stress why reenter the bar? Why not be satisfied and go home? It wasn't hard to believe a guy, especially one with a mohawk, would partake in a quick fling behind a dumpster but Brittany didn't want to believe the girl to be that desperate. She must have tons of guys willingly lined up, it wasn't as if she was a troll. She shouldn't have to resort to desperate dumpster sex.

Maybe it wasn't desperate stress relieving sex. Maybe the girl was working. Brittany shook her head rapidly once to the side, as if trying to dislodge the thought, but it clung on tightly to the forefront of her mind. She couldn't be a hooker, could she? She hadn't looked like a hooker, she wasn't dirty and wasn't slurring or stumbling on some kind of high. She had been dressed sexy but not in a slutty way. Maybe she was a high end hooker, but why would a high end hooker be slumming it in an alley, wouldn't she prefer a fancy hotel room with rich businessmen to cater to? That thought disturbed Brittany almost as much as the dirty alley sex, picturing the beauty with old men two or three times her own age, using her for her body.

Truth be told, Brittany had never met a hooker in real life before. Sure, in their family travels she had once watched out her window at night and seen prostitutes on a couple corners as they passed through the bar scene in one of the bigger cities, but she had never paid much attention to the girls. Her knowledge of prostitutes was limited to what T.V. and movies showed. For all Brittany knew, the girl was a hooker and had just finished with a client and ran into the bar to find another.

Brittany must have been in her own world for quite some time because as she came back to reality they were pulling into the driveway of a nice looking three story home. When her father parked the car and turned the ignition off Brittany opened her door. She stood and stretched her arms above her head and heard and felt a few 'pops' coming from various spots along her spine. Sighing in release she looked at their neighboring houses.

All the houses and yards were tidy. There were no overgrown lawns or half knocked over fences and all the street lamps along the crescent were brightly lit. All in all, they were definitely out of Lima Heights, she was pretty sure that's what the girl had called the run down neighborhood they had left behind.

Brittany and her parents quickly grabbed their bags from the hatch and made their way inside the house in silent exhaustion. Once inside they all stood in the living area that opened from the entrance. Most of their boxes were placed in the open area excluding, Brittany noticed, their bed frames and mattresses. She started up the stairs to look for her room. Normally she was allowed to choose which room she wanted, an apology from her parents for the frequent moves, but Brittany would just choose the first room she came to. She didn't care where she stored her things for a few months. She'd only gotten to the second step when her father noticed her movement.

"Third floor, Brittany." He sounded as tired as she felt.

She nodded her head in acknowledgement before continuing on her way. On the second floor she had to walk the length of the hallway to reach the second flight of stairs. She passed a couple empty rooms and a bathroom before reaching the end and heading up the stairs. At the top there was a door that Brittany had to pause to open, being too dark to see the handle. It opened up into a spacious area. She briefly noticed some boxes and her dressers along one wall but her attention was glued to her bed.

She quickly changed into the same night clothes from the night before, taking them out of her bag instead of searching through her boxes for clean ones. She was very surprised to see the clear plastic bag with her sheets and comforter was placed at the foot of her bed. Maybe The Muscles weren't useless after all.

Brittany haphazardly made her bed and crawled in between the sheets before promptly falling asleep, pictures of a sexy, dark woman fading in and out of her dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

_Okay, I know I promised this to be up a few days ago, but such is life. I wanted to get this and the next chapter right so it took me a little longer to get out. _

_allilurks: thanks for the review really appreciate it and I am glad you are enjoying._

_xoKara: Well here you go, no more waiting. And the Puck/Santana answer thing will have to wait._

_hlnwst: patience is a virtue, so you must be virtuous. :)_

_Lois: Haha ya I had fun writing this. Especially the 'bitch(ing) out Mr P' and seriously I couldn't see Santana demurely waving after almost dying. _

_Unicornclouds: um... :)_

_Pridemunkeyz: Thank you very much for the compliments. I know it may not be as gripping as some other stories I have read but I kind of have a habit of writing background to AU stories that I guess others don't seem to need to. lol Don't worry I totally get what you are saying and I hope you stick around for awhile and your reviews, positive and critical are always welcome. _

_Okay on with the story._

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The next day was filled with hectic, unorganized unpacking of boxes.

Brittany started with her room before helping her mom with the abundance of boxes in the living room. While unpacking her room she was able to get a better look than the quick, darkened scan she'd had the night before.

Her room took up the entire third floor, loft style. There were windows on two of the four walls, opposite each other, looking out to both the front and back of the house. Her bed was positioned in a corner beside the front facing window, and she decided to keep it where the moving guys had set it up. Not only was it an inconvenience to move, if she placed it on the opposite wall it would be in the way of the larger window that opened to the back yard. The window had double glass doors that exited onto a balcony on the roof. The wall opposite of the stairs was a walk in closet and her very own bathroom, complete with both shower and jacuzzi tub.

Brittany was impressed to say the least and was quite pleased with the arrangement. Although once her stuff was unpacked she noticed how much empty space was left over, she really didn't own much. Her closet was less than half full and three quarters of the lavender walls remained empty. She supposed that was to be expected though; she hadn't ever had this large of a room before. It only solidified the fact that her dad was serious on staying. He had been gone for almost a full week searching for their new home when they found out he was being transferred to Lima. Brittany had just thought there wasn't a lot of available housing, it was obvious now that he had been gone so long to pick the perfect house. This house had everything she could want or need, including the basement, which her parents had deemed all hers. She'd been confused until she had wandered down in curiosity, and then could barely contain herself with what the room held. Brittany actually found herself thinking she could get used to living in Lima.

After helping her parents unpack most of the boxes, including one filled with pictures the majority of which the glass was cracked or completely obliterated, and setting ornaments randomly on surfaces to be rearranged into their final resting place later on, she decided to take a walk. She would have to start school in the morning and realized she didn't know where the school was even located. She could not afford to be walking into class late. That was the opposite of blending in, which was still her goal.

Before heading out, Brittany made her way to her room to wash her face of the sweat and dust accumulated during the unpacking process. She wore another tank top, this one a light blue, and a pair of baggy army Capri pants, having learned her lesson about tight clothes and heat not commingling.

As she looked at herself in the mirror, wiping the cool water from her face with a washcloth, her eyes traveled to her shoulder. A large greenish bruise had formed across her collar bone and up to the peak of her shoulder. She winced at the sight, even knowing it looked a lot worse than it felt, and her thoughts traveled back to the cause of the blemish.

She hadn't been successful in removing the dark haired girl from her mind. Something Brittany was unaccustomed to. Usually her mind wandered from one topic to another without rhyme or reason and rarely did it focus on something for this amount of time.

Who was she? How old did she look? She couldn't be much older than the drinking age, surely, twenty-one at the most. Only four years older than herself. Was she really a hooker? What lead her to that lifestyle? If she wasn't a hooker, what did she do for a living? Were her eyes as dark or hair as soft as they'd looked last night?

Brittany shook her head to clear it of the same thoughts that had been on repeat since she'd awoken.

Sighing she grabbed her iPhone and snatched her ear buds from beside her iPod on her dresser. As she walked down the two flights of stairs she started up her music app and slid the ear buds in her ears. Saying a quick goodbye to her parents over her shoulder as she stepped out of the front door, not waiting to hear their approval.

She'd already Google mapped the directions to the school earlier, but Brittany wasn't all that good at converting computer map images to anything helpful in her mind. However, she did manage to figure out the schools general direction so she quickly started out that way.

It was another hot day and the sun beat down on her, tickling her skin pleasantly. She was, however, gladdened by the breeze that frequently brushed her skin. Her flip flops hit the bottoms of her heels with each step she took and even though her music was filling her ears she could swear she heard the 'thwack' each time.

A lot of people she passed, at first, turned to watch her as she walked by, obviously a little curious to know why she was in their neighbourhood, never having seen her before. And some she assumed had made the connection between her and the hard-to-miss moving van that had been by and unloaded the day before. The further away from her house she traveled the less attention was paid to her, which she was relieved at.

She continued on, zig-zagging, in the same general direction, paying enough attention to her surroundings so she wouldn't get lost on her way back and within twenty minutes happened upon a sign reading 'William McKinley High School.'

Taking a quick survey of her surroundings she backtracked in her mind the route she had taken, knowing she could easily knock five or more minutes off her time if she took a more obvious, direct route. It wasn't too far she figured, fifteen minutes was a pretty standard walk from her other schools as well.

William Mckinley was made up of an older brick building in combination with newer, more modern additions sprouting from both its sides. The grounds surrounding the school were picturesque, which certainly surprised Brittany who was used to concrete disappearing into more concrete or asphalt. Here there were trees and hedges surrounding the outer edges of the school and what she assumed was the football field behind the structure. The boulevard itself also contained vegetation scattered randomly about. Everything just seemed so green. She briefly wondered if it only looked as peaceful as it did because most of the plants in Texas were burnt yellow from the extreme heat wave this summer had brought. This was as much green as she'd seen in months if not a year. Everything was vibrant, she felt like Dorothy approaching the Emerald City.

She was about to turn back to time herself on the shorter path she had mapped out in her head when she noticed the school's parking lot. It held eight vehicles of different sizes and colors. They all were pretty much new and sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. Normally cars parked in a parking lot would not cause her to pause; that's where cars belonged. But today was Sunday, and she doubted that any teachers would be hanging around the grounds, not saying that any teacher would be able to afford the models on display before her. She pulled her music from her ears for the first time since stepping out her front door and was met with a similar sound. This music was faint but just loud enough for Brittany to determine its origin. It was coming from the opposite side of the school from where she stood.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Brittany made her way through the parking lot and around the east side of the building. The music increased in volume as she rounded the final corner of the school. She immediately recognized a football field stretched out over the well manicured space, white lines standing out on the turf, goal posts standing guard at either end. She also noticed a crowd gathered on the field and at first thought it to be the football team, them all being in red uniforms. But upon further examination, as she continued to step closer, she realized that girls made up the majority of the group.

Cheerleaders.

The realization caused her to flinch and in the same moment almost trip over her own feet. It was then that she noticed the music had stopped. Was their practice over? She should most likely get out of there before she was noticed. It wasn't a crime to be on school property after school hours, but she didn't want to be caught out here alone creeping on the rulers of this school.

But as the music started up once more, Brittany found instead of increasing her distance from the cheerleaders, she was moving closer towards the field. She was glad, however, that whomever had taken over her body was smart enough to guide her towards the bleachers spanning a good portion of the field, blocking her from the eyes of most of the red crowd. It wasn't until she stood beside the stands that her feet stopped. Hidden in the shade she was able to observe without being seen herself.

Her eyes quickly scanned the group, taking in their general appearance. She had never paid that much attention to the cheerleaders at her other schools, mostly because she was constantly trying to avoid anything to do with them. If you stayed out of their way and made a point of never being caught in a small crowd with any of them then it was easy to not be noticed. Blending into a large group of prey was easier than a small group, she'd learned that from the nature shows she watched. But the point is that she never took the time to watch the cheerleaders, avoiding eye contact was of the utmost importance when remaining invisible.

So as she looked the group over from her hiding spot she found herself generally quite impressed. She had seen cheerleading performances at mandatory assemblies but from what she could remember the cheerleaders at her previous schools had nothing on this group. They were all dressed in the same red, white and black uniforms, obviously the schools colors, and Brittany made a mental note not to wear those colors the next day. Nothing says 'I'm an over achiever' than dressing up in school colors on the first day of classes.

The few guys in the group wore tee shirts and full length pants. The girls on the other hand seemed to be going for the opposite approach of the conservative uniforms the male persuasion were wearing. They were dressed in skirts that were shorter than Brittany thought was allowed for a school club and their arms were bare all the way to their shoulders. All her other schools had had dress codes, skirts were to be two inches above the knee and no shorter. Apparently this school did not care to apply its cheer squad to that standard.

The short skirts, although appealing, were not what originally impressed Brittany. The group as a whole were in almost perfect sync, and to add to that, their routine was the most complicated Brittany had ever witnessed from what she could remember of her past assemblies.

From where she stood, Brittany could only see about half of the group and although she knew she was pushing her luck, she couldn't help it. She needed to see the group as a unit. Blame the dancer in her. She took a few careful steps forward so the lower seats were no longer blocking her sight of the whole. She held her breath, waiting to be called out to, but remained as unnoticed as if she truly were invisible.

The squad was not quite dancing, but their movements were fluid where fluidity was needed and sharp when speed was required. Not one member stood still for any longer than a split second, before another set of moves required them to shift once more. The majority of them shuffled around their own small area but moved with the group, maintaining exact distances with the others surrounding them. They stood in three rows and totaled about two dozen. The few who were not gliding with the group were performing flips at seeming random intervals before picking up a small portion of the choreography with the majority, and then springing out of line and executing near perfect flips and cartwheels once again. It reminded her of a colony of ants she had once observed. The workers following the steps laid out for them and the scouts wandering off on their own only to return to the colony briefly before setting out on another errand.

Brittany's eyes quickly scanned the team, taking in as much as she could. She had only meant to scan over the center group and catch the movement of the back flipping male on the far side but something had caused her head to whip back to the center so forcefully she heard a small crack from the base of her neck.

In the center, standing evenly in line with the other girls in the front row, was a girl with tanned caramel skin and dark raven hair pulled back like the others in a high pony tail. Brittany's eyes traveled the length of the girls form, not having one critique about the way she moved. Even with her fleeting scan of the rest of the squad she could tell that the blonde guy closest to her was a tad off the beat and missed his queue in the last back flip, and the red haired girl centered in the last row wasn't moving quickly enough to keep up with the others surrounding her and skipped several smaller movements just to catch up. In fact, she could probably find something to improve in over half the squad if she could tear her eyes away from the stunning girl centered before them. But this girl was on beat and moved fluidly, drilled perfection.

Brittany had been so focused on the girls beaming face, housing the prettiest smile she'd ever seen, that she was taken by complete surprise when the girls smile suddenly wasn't in her line of sight anymore. During Brittany's staring she had failed to notice the song change, but apparently the squad did not. The dark haired girl rapidly, without missing a single beat, bent over backwards and did three rapid back hand springs. The second her feet touched the ground after her final one everything began to fall apart.

A male cheerleader took a half step forward and grabbed her by the waist, lifting her up as high as he was able above his head. But he had acted too soon, even from behind the bleachers Brittany could see the raven haired girl had not quite gotten her balance before the ground had been ripped from beneath her. And to make it worse as soon as she was at the pinnacle of height the male could reach two female cheerleaders had stepped up on each side and grabbed her sneakers, hoisting her up rapidly another couple feet.

The girls arms flailed for the briefest of moments on her ascension before she struck a pose, one hand straight up in the air and the other fisted at her side, the smile never faltering for even a second.

Only when a scream erupted from a girl nearer to her was Brittany able to force her eyes anywhere else. Brittany turned in time to watch a tall brunette tumble backwards into the waiting arms of three cheerleaders. It was then that Brittany realized there were three identical set ups. The black haired girl who captured Brittany's attention was centered between a blonde on the far side and the fallen brunette closest her, but all seemed to have attempted the same moves.

The blonde on the far side wobbled back and forth waving her arms and when it was clear she was unable to catch her balance the two girls holding her feet let go and the male standing behind her grabbed her waist and set her back on the ground.

"Reset!"

Brittany's whole body jumped at the call, her elbow connecting with the edge of the stands. As her eyes filled with tears Brittany forced herself to remain silent, biting down on her lower lip to keep from whimpering as piercing shocks shot up her arm with each pulse of her heart.

After releasing a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding she examined the squad once more. Blinking back bleary tears, she watched as the center girl was helped down in a similar fashion to the blonde, although more gracefully. Immediately when her feet hit the ground she spun around fiercely, jabbing her finger into the boys chest. She must have been speaking in a hushed tone as Brittany could not even hear a murmur of sound coming from their direction. From the petrified look on the guys face and how he abruptly raised his upturned palms, he was being scolded for his early lift which caused the girl to lose her balance in the first place. She spun away from him as suddenly as she had turned on him, her pony whipped around so fast it stuck out horizontally like a helicopter propeller, probably nearly as deadly and missed the male's face just barely.

"Q, what the hell happened?" she asked, raising her voice to the blonde who had been on the far pyramid.

"I don't know." the blonde, Q, replied breathlessly. "I was fine until half way up and lost balance." The two girls stared at each other for a few moments and Brittany wished the dark haired one wasn't facing the opposite way. She wanted to see what was passing over her face. But from her stiff posture and the look on the blonde's face, they were in a heated stare down. "It won't happen again, S." The blonde finally returned, averting her eyes in surrender, but she crossed her arms in defiance as she spotted the other members of the squad observing the interaction. She singled out one girl with red-streaked hair, glaring deeply at her.

"Damn straight it won't happen again."

Brittany determined by this point that the raven haired cheerleader was the captain of the team, given her actions and the submissive behavior of the other members in regards to her. If this was a colony of ants, she would have been their queen. Although admittedly a more beautiful queen than any ant had the hope of becoming.

"Jes, what the fuck is your excuse?" Snarling was not the best look for the stunning cheerleader but, damn, Brittany had to give it to her; she was terrifying. Brittany was just glad that tone and look were not directed at herself.

The brunette who had tumbled off her pyramid scoffed, actually scoffed, before turning from her own argument with a couple of the other cheerleaders to face the captain. Jes had her arms crossed over her chest and Brittany clearly saw the scowl on her face as she turned, before being met with the girls brown pony. The captains eyes narrowed into small slits at the other girls blatant recalcitrance.

"Ask those two dimwits," she replied flippantly, tipping her head to the two girls to whom she'd been arguing. "They fucked it all up."

The raven haired girl's dark eyes flashed to the two singled out cheerleaders, now cowering, obviously expecting the full wrath of their captain. They looked like misbehaved pups waiting for discipline after chewing on an expensive pair of shoes. But to Brittany's, and the cowering girls', surprise they were not reprimanded. Dark eyes met again with the brunette's figure before being averted as their owner took a few steps back, sidling to face the bleachers and then stood still, expectantly.

"I believe I said reset," she said loudly after a few seconds of no one moving. The girl, Q, being the only one to have already found her place in the front line on the far side of the field. A few groans were heard from some of the girls and the whole team was too slow at finding their places apparently. "Do I need to make an example out of someone?" The captains voice was quieter than previously but the words carried. And apparently they carried greater weight than Brittany would have guessed because all the members were suddenly in their rightful spots, bodies snapping to attention.

The music started up and once again the entire team sprang into action. This time, although her gaze continued to scan the captains form frequently, Brittany forced herself to look at the others. The blonde guy closest to her was still off a tiny bit and the redheaded girl definitely needed some work to catch up to the skill level of the others. She was completely obvious in her mistakes and Brittany wondered how she hadn't been yelled at yet, assuming that was how all mistakes were dealt with. Another girl, the one with bright red streaks in her dark, brunette hair stood directly behind Q and hit her marks on the right beats but moved in a combination of fast and slow bursts, not blending into the group until their split second pauses every five seconds or so. There were a handful of others that she caught tripping, probably in exhaustion; Brittany wasn't aware of how long they had already been practicing. And once, she caught one of the female cart wheelers touch her hand to the grass during a hands free maneuver. Brittany also took a few seconds to observe Jes and Q individually on the ground, as she hadn't taken notice of them the first go around.

Jes was quite adequate with her body, but somehow found a way to make the innocent choreography into something of a sex show. It had a slightly raunchy feel to it even though Brittany couldn't figure it out. Jes mimicked the others but moved her hips from one stance to the other in a wider arch and Brittany found herself put off by the girls moves, though technically she was on point. A smile was plastered to her face just like all the other cheerleaders but it appeared way too forced and it didn't reach her green eyes, which scowled dangerously to make up for her upturned lips.

Q on the other hand wore her smile as if she was born giggling and giddy. Her whole face was lit and was definitely the runner up of prettiest smiling face Brittany had ever laid eyes on. Q's body moved in sync with the team but had a fluid grace that made her stand out. Even within the fast, jerky choreography she was able to follow, keep up, and maintain her flowing steps. Brittany could tell Q had had dance training that was most likely based in ballet.

When the music changed this time Brittany was aware of it. She watched her black haired obsession first until she was safely being lifted up by the same boy as before. This time he had not made the same mistake but his face was strained with the fear of failing again. Once satisfied Brittany's eyes traveled to Q who had finished her back hand springs perfectly and was adequately balanced upon her two teammates until she was half way up and she began to lose her footing. She tried bending her knees to stabilize herself but only managed to unbalance one of the girls below her. The whole pyramid shuffled a few inches back, swaying almost comically, before Q caught and held her balance, standing up straight and posed just as her captain was.

The left most girl underneath Q happened to be the girl with red streaks in her hair. Because of Q's obvious background in ballet, Brittany knew it would take a lot to tamper with her center of gravity and determined, without having to watch again, that the girl was not lifting Q at the same speed as the other cheerleader attached to her opposite foot.

Brittany was in the process of turning to Jes' pyramid, pausing at the captain's frown while scrutinizing Q, when a familiar scream filled the air. Before her eyes landed on the brown haired girl she knew the result. Jes was already situated in the waiting arms of the three same squad members who had caught her the time before. This time Brittany watched as Jes was pushed up onto her feet and immediately the girl took a malicious step towards the, once again, cowering cheerleaders.

"You useless fucking cunts!" Her voice was filled with rage and cracked on the last word as it rose in pitch. "Are you trying to break my neck?" When neither of the girls could do more than stutter a few syllables Jes continued. "If you don't get your fucking shit together I'll have you off this team before the end of the day. Do I make myself clear?"

Both girls nodded so rapidly Brittany was sure they would get whip lash.

"Oh, hell no."

Brittany's attention was drawn back to the captain who was just finding her way back to the ground. Her eyes were narrowed at Jes and Brittany could only fathom at how menacing they would be up close and personal.

"Hey skunk head. You need to lift with puss-filled-acne-face, unless you want to be banished to the nose bleeds with freshie ginger back there," she said without taking her eyes off of Jes and the small group surrounding her, who somehow remained oblivious to the glare directed their way; Jes was still shouting obscenities to the two girls. Brittany wondered briefly who the captain was talking about, who named their kid Skunkhead? But at the slight nod of the girl standing next to Q Brittany was able to catch up with what was happening. "Q take them and practice. I gots some things to straighten out."

The ignorant group were too preoccupied with Jes' threatening words they didn't notice the tigress stalking towards them. And by the way she folded her arms across her chest and rose her chin slightly Brittany was sure she was the real threat to be watched, even if Jes had a good four inches of height on her.

"Yo, Drag Queen Barbie." By the way Jes' back stiffened Brittany didn't have to guess whom the sharp words were directed. "Please tell me that I've gone delusional in this heat 'cause I knows I didn't just here you threaten to kick anyone off _my_ team."

Jes turned to face the angry girl and visibly flinched when their eyes met. "I... but. Well they wer-" she stuttered under the smaller girls attention before being cut off with one raised hand.

"I don't want to hear it. I'm the captain of this squad and I am the only one with the authority here to remove anyone from it." Her gaze traveled to the other girls. "And will do so in a heartbeat, but only if _I_ deem the removal necessary or warranted." She made a point of looking at as many of the team as she could before addressing Jes once more. "I don't want to have this discussion again. You bitches all know I hates repeating mineself." Her dark pony swung rapidly behind her as she punctuated her words by jerking her head, which may have seemed comical on anyone else but suited the captain's terrifying demeanor.

As she received nods from the squad, Q and her little group joined them. "I think we got the timing down, S. It's getting late. Can we just get this over with already?" Q's countenance was tense and she did not relax until she received a nod from her captain.

"Shelby!" she yelled, eyes still locked with a now cowering form that was Jes. Within seconds a smaller girl with light brown hair sprinted from behind the ranks of other cheerleaders, knocking a couple sprawling on the grass in her wake. "Take up front and center. I need to see this disaster for myself." The girl nodded eagerly. "And maybe this time you can refrain from calling the dogs when your bubble butt topples off the pyramid," she addressed Jes once more. "Drawing attention to _your_ mistakes takes the focus off the rest of the teams perfection." Jes scowled at the captains blatant dig at her skills and was probably lucky that the other girl did not see it as she had turned on her heel and let out a yell of "reset" before making her way to the bleachers to observe, which brought her closer to Brittany's hiding spot.

Brittany knew she should move, step back into the darkness more fully, but her whole body was frozen in shock. She could feel her heart palpating unnaturally and her eyes darted between the raven haired girl and the ground, hoping maybe she had formed the only super power she had ever wished for. But in seeing her feet, solid and definitely visible against the cool grass she knew if the other girl was to so much as glance her way, she'd be caught.

Somewhere within her, something finally grasped the danger she was in, self preservation won out over whatever had thought remaining in the open was a good idea, and she was finally able to take the half step back in retreat. She heard the distinct metal clang of the bleachers as the captain bounced up them and suddenly everything went quiet.

The rest of the squad jumped at the first beats of music, flowing and shifting as a unit. Again Brittany observed them, critiquing most of the same members for the same mistakes as the last time. Shelby, who was now centered in front had the largest smile out of the group, obviously pleased, proud as a peacock, to be displayed in a position of honour. She didn't move quite as gracefully as Q, and didn't have the effortless dexterity or agility as the captain, but she was quite adequate. Brittany found she much preferred Shelby's finesse to Jes' lascivious maneuvers.

When the song change occurred, Brittany made sure her eyes were trained on Jes' form. She forced herself to look past the girls noisome movements and watch as she executed the three required back hand springs. The male cheer leader stepped forward, lifted her up and the two same cheerleaders stepped up and lifted Jes the rest of the way straight up in the air. Brittany, at first thought maybe the routine was going to end perfectly this time around and quickly looked at both Shelby and Q, sporting matching stances, obviously the Skunkhead had managed to master at least one part of the choreography.

But no sooner was Brittany celebrating the finished product than she heard the distinct call of the captain for everyone to reset again. It was then that she noticed Jes had somehow found her way, silently this time, back in the arms of the same three cheerleaders behind her pyramid. Jes was pushed up again and looked like she was about to take another round out of the girls before her, but when the captain yelled reset for the second time Jes was quick to follow orders.

This time, Brittany never averted her eyes from Jes for a single second and paid close attention to the two girls hands who lifted her during the final seconds of the routine. It was then that she noticed what was causing all the trouble, and quite frankly was surprised at herself for not catching it the time before.

Jes toppled as Shelby and Q remained, again, perfectly poised atop their respective pyramids.

"Reset!" Brittany could tell that the captain was getting fed up and she couldn't blame her. She had seen the team run through the same routine four times and she was sure they had been practicing well before she had shown up. "Jesus Jes," she exclaimed. "Shelby's a fucking sophomore and your a God damn senior, and shes making you look like we've borrowed you from the baby squad. Baby Giant, that's officially your new name and everyone on the squad's going to refer to you as such until you can figure out how to wear your big girl spankies. _Now fucking run it again_." Her voice paused between the last five words, highlighting the fact that the whole team was going to suffer until the girl got it right.

Objections were voiced from the squad in groans and a few mumbled words of "Baby Giant", directed at Jes. For her part, Jes glared at the other members but didn't speak to defend herself and no one seemed to be half as fazed by her glaring as they had a few minutes before.

The fifth time ended just as the others had, with the gradually more irate voice of the captain yelling for another reset. And a sixth time supporting the same outcome. As the squad started up on their seventh run through of the routine, Brittany found herself feeling sorry for everyone on the team, especially the captain. Brittany was not able to see the captain from her hiding spot, without exposing herself, but she could well imagine that by now her eyes were glued to Jes' group and she was trying to figure out what Brittany had already determined a while ago.

They were only a little ways into the seventh routine when Brittany felt a heavy pressure on her right shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The voice seemed to be coming from a great distance as Brittany's whole being was focused on one spot on her body. A small squeal escaped her lips as pain seared through her shoulder and felt as if her whole arm was ablaze. On instinct, Brittany dropped her shoulder at the same time she spun away from the unknown cause of discomfort. Her eyes remained closed for the span of a few moments as she calmed her breathing and placed her left hand protectively over the bruise on her right shoulder.

When she opened her eyes once more she froze, mouth agape. Before her stood the dark haired captain of the cheerleaders. Her right hand was slightly outstretched and her nose was crinkled in confusion, which Brittany later would describe as adorable. The captain's eyes were trained on Brittany's left hand and immediately Brittany removed it from her shoulder to drop to her side where it fingered the hem of her tank self-consciously. The captain's eyes followed the path of Brittany's retreating hand before shifting back to her shoulder. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted slightly as if she was about to say something, but must have thought better of it because a second later a scowl was plastered to her face and she dropped her still raised hand to her side.

"I asked what you were doing here." she looked Brittany up and down and Brittany folded her arms around her own waist to keep the nervous flutter at bay. Her mouth opened and closed a few times but she could not come up with any excuse, good or bad. She kept wondering how the girl had left the stands so silently. She must have super sleuth powers.

Up close the girl was even more stunning than Brittany would have guessed. She was obviously of Latin decent; her dark hair shone in blue and gold streaks, caught in the light from the rays of the sun and her tanned skin seemed to glow. Her eyes were the darkest Brittany had ever seen, dark chocolate. And her legs were smooth and seemed unfairly long for the girl being a few inches shorter than herself. As her mouth pressed into a thin white line and her eyes narrowed into a glare Brittany was taken back to the night before. She'd seen this picture before. Switch out the red uniform with a green dress and let her hair flow down from her pony and Brittany was positive this was the same girl that her father had almost ran over in Lima Heights.

"Are you deaf? Mute? Or just dumb?" The Latina cocked her hip to one side and leaned forward slightly and Brittany knew from watching countless other cheerleaders that she was about to become this ones prey. Did they teach these girls that stance at cheer camp? How to Bully Nerds 101: Attitude and Body Language.

She wasn't sure if it was the surprise at being this close to the two girls she'd been admiring from afar or the fact that they turned out to be the same person. Maybe it was the throbbing ache coming from her shoulder or the heat from the sun. Whatever the cause Brittany was unable to figure out what made her react to the insult the cheerleader had thrown her way. She didn't much care at being called deaf or mute, those weren't really insults anyway, just observations. But Brittany had been called stupid and dumb numerous times and never had she allowed her abusers to know how deeply it affected her.

"Excuse me?" she snapped at the captain. Brittany straightened her posture moving her arms from from their protective position at her stomach to cross over her chest daringly. She stared the smaller girl down for a brief moment but as the other girls eyes darkened Brittany's bearing faltered slightly, not being used to the dominating role, and that's all the opening the cheerleader needed.

"Definitely stupid." She responded taking a step forward and Brittany shuffled back in reaction. "I said. _What are you doing here_?" The Latina spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable carefully as if she were speaking to a foreigner who was having trouble with the English language.

"I'm just watching." Brittany shifted her weight from one foot to the other, dropping both arms to her sides. Her eyes darted from the cheerleader in front of her, to the grass and then followed the path of a purple and green dragonfly as it zipped past, finally resting her eyes on the flowing branches of a willow tree a few yards away.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" The harshness in the girls tone caused Brittany to flinch.

"I don't know..." She'd meant to continue on but realized as her eyes found the cheerleader again that it was not the response the girl was looking for. She opened her mouth to clarify but shut it with a snap when the cheerleader raised her hand. So that's what it felt like to be on the receiving end of the captains authoritative powers.

"We don't give tips to the competition." Again the girls dark eyes scanned Brittany's form. "Now are you going to leave peaceably or am I goings ta have ta have you escorted back to what ever third rate, talentless, back-water sorry excuse for a squad you came from?"

"Competition?" Brittany asked, not quite following the conversation.

The other girl scoffed loudly and rolled her eyes before they passed over Brittany's shoulder and remained. Brittany was about to turn to see what held the cheerleaders attention when the cheerleaders eyes darkened even further.

"Fucking reset!" The scream was loud and hoarse having been used a lot in the past hour and Brittany stumbled backwards in surprise, only barely catching herself before tumbling onto the ground.

When Brittany was stable once more she peeked up at the angered girl. Her hands were clenched into fists and opened slightly with every intake of breath before the girls fingernails dug into her palms once more with every exhale. Her eyes were closed and her lips were twitching as if she was silently talking to herself.

The music started up and finally the other girl relaxed. She opened her eyes and seemed genuinely surprised to find Brittany standing before her. Was it possible she had forgotten about her?

"Still here?"

Guess not. She should have slipped away when she had the chance. She tried to speak again to offer up an apology but wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to be sorry for and instead ended up stuttering a few syllables before clenching her jaw in embarrassment.

"I told you we don't give pointers to the competition." The captains voice was quieter this time but Brittany felt the same force behind her words. She expected to be obeyed and Brittany could only stand and wait for her command. "You should leave now."

Brittany took a couple rapid steps forward to move around the girl and retreat back the way she had snuck up but something stopped her. The cheerleader was staring intently out at the field, where her team was now struggling to pull off the simplest of choreography in their exhaustion, and didn't even notice Brittany had remained.

"What do you mean by competition?" It slipped out before Brittany could talk herself out of it. She was certainly expecting the smaller girl to turn around and start yelling at her but was surprised when she received an answer that was more exasperated than angry.

"Not that I think you could be from a squad that would classify as any kind of competition to us. Even stealing our routine would prove a waste of your time." The girl continued observing her fumbling team. "We haven't lost a single meet since I took over as captain, and I don't plan on this year being any different."

"I'm not on any squad. I'm not a cheerleader." Brittany couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped her lips. The thought was too ridiculous. "Besides I go to this school."

"No you don't."

Brittany eyed the back of the captains head in wonder and a little bit confused. "Excuse me? But I do."

"Nope."

"How would you know?" Brittany responded, getting slightly fed up with the girls nonchalant attitude. She'd almost rather the girl glaring at her again than acting as if she was an annoying fly that was only giving the time of day to be swatted away from her.

"I know everyone that goes to this school." she replied casually but turned her head to glance at Brittany over her shoulder, looking her up and down once more. "And I've never seen you before. So therefore, you must be lying."

"Since when has a senior ever given the lower classes the time of day?" Brittany asked and didn't even try to mask the glare she sent at the back of the other girls head.

"Just proved my point."

"Uh.." That was not the response Brittany was expecting and the lack of clarification baffled her. This girl was really trying to push her buttons and if Brittany wasn't so annoyed at the girls so self assured attitude she may have thought better than to fall into the cheerleaders trap. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The captain sighed dramatically before turning so she was able to watch the team and glance at Brittany without straining her neck. "It means," she stated matter-of-factually, "that if you did go to this school you would know that I am not a senior. I'm a junior."

"But you're the captain." As the other girl raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at her statement Brittany continued. "Aren't you?" She asked uncertainly, her confusion plainly exposed on her face.

She threw her head back and laughed at Brittany's question. "I just told you that I was, didn't I?"

"Oh, right." Brittany answered after a lengthy pause that she used to admire the sound of the other girls laugh. "But aren't captains typically seniors?"

"Not that it concerns you, but I've bee captain since halfway through my freshman year."

"Wow," Brittany looked back to the team and realized how difficult it would have been to organize, especially as a freshman. "Must be really good." she mumbled.

"Sorry, what was that?" The captains eyes were trained on her again.

"N-nothing," The darker girl scrutinized her but soon turned back to observe her team. "I'm a new student, just transferred here actually. My first day is tomorrow. I was just making sure tha-"

"Whatever. Get off my field now, please." Even with the polite word at the end the request was anything but genial. Brittany's annoyance at the Latina grew again.

"It's school property isn't it. The field doesn't really belong to you."

"It's my success that pays for the upkeep and manicuring of each blade of grass, so yes I do believe I have earned the right to calling it mine." Her eyes flared.

"You're so full of yourself."

Brittany's eyes widened in surprise at her own response and the captain was obviously just as flabbergasted as she stared at her. Her eyes narrowed once more and she took a step towards Brittany. This time Brittany forced herself to stand her ground.

"Excuse me? I'm going to give you three seconds to rectify that statement."

"Or what?" Brittany didn't know what came over her, but it felt good to finally stand up to someone. What was it about this girl that had Brittany acting the opposite of what her self preserving conscience was telling her. The smaller girl paused a few feet from Brittany and opened her mouth twice in quick succession but no response was voiced. "Look, since you're the captain of the cheerleading team and I'm now a student here," Brittany said with a smile. "I'll help you out. As a school spirit type of thing. If I was from a rival team I wouldn't do that, right?"

"I don't need help from the likes of you."

"By the looks of your squad I'd say that you do."

"What do you know? You said you weren't a cheerleader." She folded her tan arms across her chest and Brittany, for the first time since the conversation started, realized she had the upper hand. The captain had no idea what was going wrong with the routine.

"Oh so now you believe me?" She smirked at the captain, raising one of her eyebrows just like the other girl had done moments before. "Fine then." She sighed as the smaller girl maintained her defensive stance. "I'll help the blonde girl on the far end over there, considering she's been completing the whole routine perfectly, every time, even though she must be about to pass out."

"Q?" the captains eyes traveled to the far end of the field, finding the girl Brittany was referring to.

"Yeah, not everyone gets the benefit of forcing another in their place so they can take a break apparently." The glare she received at that was almost enough to cause Brittany to drop what ever act she was playing at and run as fast and as far as she could. She wasn't even sure why she had said it. She knew it wasn't true and from how perfectly the dark haired girl had been moving she obviously didn't skip out on training. "So, if you want to finish up before sundown, or at least before someone gets hurt at a careless mistake you might want to tell that girl-" Brittany nodded her head towards Jes "to stop pointing her toes so much."

Brittany watched as the captains glare shifted to Jes' direction just as she was completing her back hand springs but Brittany knew what the outcome was going to be so she turned around and began retracing her steps away from the field. She had only taken a few strides when a familiar voice started yelling.

"Reset! And Baby Giant, mind not pointing your God damn sausage toes at the ground this time. I'm this close to demoting you to the bottom of the fucking pyramid, and I'll do it if the next time isn't impeccably executed."

Brittany smile lasted the entire way to her house. She was surprised when she arrived at the walk to her front door. She hadn't remembered most of the return trip but wasn't too concerned. Her parents questioned her strange behaviour, apparently goofy grins were unusual on her, but when she told them she had had a good walk they didn't question her further.

It wasn't until she was laying in bed, after an awkward supper in which her parents exchanged worried and confused glances, that the day finally caught up to her. She had school tomorrow, and with that thought her grin was wiped from her face for the first time since she had shown up the Latina on her own turf. She groaned aloud realizing for the first time that her actions would have consequences. How was she to remain invisible when she had practically slapped the Head Cheerleader in the face. How was she supposed to remain anonymous when the girl running the school was probably going to be searching her out the next day. She'd just become the number one prey to the most influential girl in school.

Brittany rolled onto her stomach and groaned loudly into her pillow to muffle the sound.

She was so screwed.


	5. Chapter 5

_Here's another chapter for all you lovely followers. I had a slightly more difficult time writing this and the next chapter but I think they turned out alright. Hope y'all enjoy._

_**hlnwst**__: Well there certainly is a first time for everything lol. And why not? Virtuous can mean different things to different people. haha_

_**Pridemunkeyz**__: Do you speak spanish? Just wondering lol. And I can totally see why you are concerned with Santana's role at this point in the story and future chapters will shed some light on your concerns. Although I secretly love Santana as Head Cheerleader. ;)_

_**4evamuzic**__: I am so so sorry. I didn't mean for the last chapter to slap you! I hope your face is sufficiently healed and sorry for making you wait so long for this update. I hope, you enjoy this one._

_**Unicornclouds**__: I am so glad I did not disappoint with the first meeting. And like always, thank you so much for reviewing._

* * *

She was frozen. How had she let this happen? She watched from the drivers seat of her SUV as a few students arrived in small groups. It was early still, so the grounds were mostly bare. She'd arrived ten minutes ago, sooner than she had planned. She was surprised when she was handed the keys to the car, red bow tied around the key chain. But the surprise at being given her very own vehicle was not as overwhelming as she would have previously thought. She had forced herself to smile and jump, a half-hearted attempt at acting normal. But the whole morning, from waking up and getting ready, making sure to not wear the school colors and opting for a light green tee shirt with some random swirling design on it and jean capris, through breakfast and even during her display of pleasure in receiving her parents gift she had felt numb.

She couldn't make herself move. Just forcing the air in and out of her lungs was taking too much effort. She was sure she was probably on full on panic attack and had been since pulling into McKinley's parking lot. She'd always felt some form of anxiety on the first day at a new school but she had always known what to expect. Walk in, don't be late or overly early, don't draw unwanted attention to herself, and blend in. As long as she didn't make a spectacle of herself she knew what to do to remain out of the spotlight. But now that she had already exposed herself so blatantly to the most popular girl in the school, she was unsure on how to act. Was she supposed to go about her normal routine? Was she supposed to continue acting the way she had yesterday with the cheerleader? What would be worse, acting like an invisible in hopes that the other girl would forget about their altercation, but risk being called out on her bipolar attitude change or walk in and act the role she had only been able to pull off the day before, worried that she would falter at any minute?

She was stressing herself out more than was needed, she knew. If she stayed in the car any longer hyperventilating she was going to make herself late so she slumped out of the SUV. After straightening her hair behind her headband in the rear view mirror she snatched her bag from the back and headed across the parking lot. She hopped up the steps and into the front door of the school behind a group of girls chatting animatedly. It didn't take her long to find the main office of the building. The doors were made of glass and Brittany was amazed that they were free from greasy fingerprints, having been placed into a hallway filled with a bunch of sweaty teens.

It didn't take her long to speak with the receptionist and get her time table and before she knew it she was walking through the glass doors once more and into a more crowded hallway than what she had left. As she walked down the hallway at a brisk pace, matching the speed of the majority of other kids, she found herself automatically glancing at the numbers on both the lockers and rooms that she passed. She realized by the increasing value that she was thankfully headed in the right direction to her assigned locker.

On her way she memorized the layout from the room numbers, knowing the other floors would follow the same number scheme allowed her to get her bearing without needlessly wandering the halls between classes. Looking lost when every student should know their class locations would only draw attention to her being a new student and she was still unsure how she was going to go about this fitting in thing. No one had approached her yet so she still had time to figure something out. She remembered how good it felt to stand up to the head cheerleader and wondered if that feeling was worth the risk of falling flat on her ass if it backfired on her.

She nearly walked passed her locker she was so deep in thought but quickly turned just in time. She was lucky, she had scored a locker on the top row. It only took her two tries to get her combination to work on the lock and there wasn't even any garbage left in it from its previous occupant. She looked at her time table again noticing the classes she would have before her lunch break. Stuffing everything she wouldn't need in her locker, which wasn't much as she hadn't receive any of her books yet, she was about to close the door and head to her first class when she saw red, literally.

Coming down the hall on her right side was a group of five cheerleaders. Brittany groaned as she noticed the lead girl was none other than the captain herself. Instead of closing her locker, Brittany busied herself with pretending to be looking for something in her nearly empty locker, hiding as much of herself as she could in the small space. She held her breath as she heard the girls speaking right behind her and only exhaled when they had safely passed her by. She nearly slammed her head on the locker door beside hers when she realized the group had stopped not five lockers down from her. She took a quick peek around her door and noticed the captain entering the combination. They were locker neighbours. How pathetically perfect was that? Brittany figured she could probably wait them out, her locker door was sufficiently hiding her from their stares.

"Well I have to get going, Mr. Jenkins is expecting my paper before class starts" one of the girls said.

"You mean your second attempt to please the English drone?" another girl piped up.

"Yeah, he is such a pain. I don't understand what the problem was with my first copy."

"It was probably the fact that it was half typed and half handwritten." Brittany peeked again and noticed it was Q that had responded that time. She was leaning her back against the lockers separating Brittany's and the captains and was facing the other three cheerleaders while the captain was busy with the inside of her locker.

"Well I wasn't really paying attention the day he assigned it. I thought he had said three pages not five. I had to do some last minute editing the day it was due."

"More likely, Mr. Jenkins wanted the essay to contain information from the actual _book_ you were covering, not some foreign movie representation." Brittany didn't have to look to know the voice belonged to the Latina. "I told you to read the book, Jes."

"Yeah, well it doesn't really matter now. He made me redo the whole thing." Jes groaned.

"Should've done it right the first time then," the captain replied, not showing any sympathy.

"Whatever."

Brittany heard three sets of footsteps moving on further down the hall, but was still impatient for the others to leave so she could get to class.

"I've about had it up to here with her fucking attitude Quinn"

"I know Santana, but you can't expect her to change, she's been that way forever." Quinn responded.

The captain's name was Santana. Brittany stored that information away but thought it suited the girl. She'd never met anyone with that name before and considering the way she had acted around the cheerleader the day before it was fair to say that the girl was as unique as her name.

"If it was just about her being a bitch, I wouldn't care." Brittany heard her slam her locker door. "But she's becoming cocky and so self important. If she was an _amazing_ fucking Cheerio I'd feel it was justified, but half the time the team is standing around waiting for her to get her shit together."

Brittany snorted. The team certainly wasn't standing around the day before. There was no waiting for Jes to catch up, it was more like the team was being punished for Jes' lack of discipline. Brittany realized that the girls conversation had stopped. Thinking they had finally walked away she closed her own locker, only to be met with two pairs of eyes looking her way, one hazel set and one dark mocha colored. Brittany's cheeks reddened knowing that they must have realized she was eavesdropping. She quickly turned on her heel and headed in the opposite direction. Thankfully neither of the girls seemed to want to follow her. Apparently she was going to default to her conditioned response; avoid conflict and especially avoid the cheerleaders. At least her decision was made for her. There was no way she could pull off acting the confidant girl when her innate response was to run.

She had to take a longer route to her first class, having to make a detour because of the cheerleaders, and arrived later than she would have liked. She entered the class and walked straight to the teacher sitting behind the desk. He was a middle aged man who was going bald, but was obviously in denial of it. He had a few wisps of hair sitting atop his head and they were scattered at even distances, dyed brown hair and pale bald skin of his head creating stripes, like a zebra, across the top part of his scalp. He wore a navy suit and a yellow tie that clashed spectacularly and wrinkles at the creases had already set in. He was picking his nails with the end of a ruler and took a few seconds to realize there was someone standing before him. When he looked up at Brittany through green horn rimmed glasses he seemed annoyed at the interruption.

"I'm a new student here." Brittany spoke lowly, not wanting the whole class to switch their attention in her direction. She handed the teacher a note she had received from the receptionist. She watched as he read the note and grunted in response. He opened a drawer to his right and pulled out a ratty looking math text. The cover was missing and there were doodles covering the inner page in blue ink. She grabbed the book from his outstretched hand and waited for more directions.

"Find a seat anywhere that's open, there is no assigned seating" he finally supplied when she continued to look expectantly down at him.

When she turned around she was once again met with dark eyes focusing on her. Brittany forced herself to tear her gaze away and chose a sit on the opposite side of the classroom. She sat behind a skinny kid with a reddish brown afro, there was limited seating availability as class was about to start, and began setting up her books and pencils. She rummaged through her bag until she found her calculator and straightened to place it on her desk.

"Hey there."

Brittany jumped so forcefully in surprise that the legs of her desk screeched as it was shifted with her movement. The Afro boy was turned in his seat and was staring at her, well was staring at her chest. Brittany lifted her hand and waved her fingers in front of his glasses until he shifted his eyes to look into hers.

"I'm JBI," he introduced himself, "allow me to show you the ropes and maybe later we can have a good time." He ended his speech by sniffing a snot bubble back into his nose and wiping his damp upper lip off with the back sleeve of his sweater.

Brittany looked at the boy and blinked a few times, not sure how to proceed. What was this kids game? He obviously couldn't have expected her to agree, and yet there he was looking at her expectantly.

"No thanks," she sputtered and was surprised when he just shrugged and turned back to the front of the class. He wasn't even disappointed at all at her rejection.

The bell rang at that point and the teacher finally stood from his desk and approached the board. He wrote a page number down and then paused to allow the students to find it in their books. As Brittany searched through her own tattered text she noticed the lack of page flipping noise within the room and glanced around to see that at least half of the class weren't bothering to open their books at all. A couple in the back rows were actually using the covers as pillows and were obviously sleeping. She couldn't stop her eyes from finding the raven haired cheerleader and noticed at least she was one of the ones that was finding the page needed.

The teacher, Mr. Bates, continued speaking, describing the meaning and use of the equations that were mentioned in the chapter he had them turn to. Brittany scanned the chapter and was pleasantly surprised when she realized her old school had covered this particular one the year before and she had spent the last two weeks reviewing it before leaving Texas. At least she wasn't starting off behind in the class she always had the most trouble in.

When Mr. Bates finished explaining the function and worked through one on the board he asked the class to then solve the next on their own, writing it on the board for everyone to see. It didn't take her long to work through the equation as it was a pretty simple one, being a new chapter and all to the other students. She took the remainder of time the Zebra was allowing them to scan the room once more.

Brittany was seated a few desks from the front and against the wall, that held the exit at the front of the room. There were five rows lined up from one side of the class to the other. She watched as a all but the sleeping students stared at their notebooks and swiped their pencils across the pages in front of them. She could tell by the way some of the students eyes were glazed over and their wrists flicked in the same rhythm from side to side that many were just doodling instead of completing the task given them. At the complete opposite side of the class was where the cheerleaders were situated. There were four girls and a guy in total, the captain was seated against the windows a desk further to the front of the class than Brittany's was. The male cheerleader sat two desks behind her and the other three girls, none of which Brittany knew the names of, surrounded the captain on all sides, almost like a protective barrier. Brittany wondered what kind of protection the girl would need, certainly no one would try anything to her. No one would be that stupid. Only, Brittany had been just the day before. As she continued to watch the Latina, bent over her paper and scribbling frantically and pausing briefly to tap the eraser end of her pencil on her chin before staring at the paper once more, Brittany found herself smiling at the other girls actions. When she aggressively scribbled out a good portion of her work and glared at the paper in front of her as if she could force the equation to submit to her just as everyone else would Brittany had to force herself to not laugh aloud.

Brittany pulled her eyes from the other girl and looked around the class once more and noticed that out of the ones that were actually trying to solve the equation, she was the only one that had finished. She looked back to the cheerleaders and saw the captain writing again, this time with a smirk on her face. She finished writing and straightened her spine, staring at her work briefly, before nodding her head to herself and turned to look around at the other students. Brittany had been trying to suppress another giggle and didn't register the other girls wandering eyes quickly enough. Their eyes met and neither girl looked away right away. As the other girl squinted her way Brittany realized she was still sporting a silly grin and quickly wiped it from her face. She was trying to force her eyes to look somewhere else when a ruler being tapped loudly on her desk made her start.

"Ms.-" he drew out, obviously forgetting her name.

"Pierce, Brittany S. Pierce." Brittany stated abruptly, still shaken from the immediate loss of eye contact with the cheerleader across the room.

"Yes. Ms. Pierce are you having trouble with the problem? I do not like idlers in my class and hope you are not going to start off your time here as one such student."

Brittany was stunned because she had seen at least half the class was not even attempting the equation and she became slightly indignant that he would assume something about her in the first twenty minutes of knowing her.

"I'm finished the equation actually." She looked blankly at him, challenging him in a way to question her. He visibly took a step back and studied her.

"Then you wouldn't mind coming up to the board and solving it up there for the rest of the class then, hmmm?" He gestured for her to stand and held out a blue marker for her to use on the white board at the front of the class.

She stood and grabbed the marker from his hand, forcing herself to not rip it from his grip like she wanted to. "Sure, gladly." she said overly sweet, but didn't look at anyone as she moved toward the front of the class.

She walked to the board and took the thirty seconds needed to write down the answers, making sure to show her work, before she turned around, and with a little skip, made her way back to her seat. She held the marker out as she walked passed Mr. Bates and he automatically reached for it, still staring at the board. He seemed adequately flummoxed at her work before he walked forward and stuttered out that she had gotten it correct. He quickly told everyone to copy the answer down if they had not gotten the same result but immediately wiped the board clean before anyone had a chance to.

She heard a few groans from the students who had not written fast enough to catch her answers and could feel the eyes of her classmates on her. She kept her head down and eyes glued to the text in front of her, letting her blonde hair fall to curtain her face from the other kids. They were then given a set of equations as homework and shortly after the bell was ringing.

Brittany stuffed everything into her bag before making her way out of the door into the rapidly increasing crowd. She had only made it to the next classroom down the hall before she sensed a presence next to her. As she turned her head she first caught a glimpse of red, then a dark swinging pony and realized Santana had fallen in step with her. Her surprise caused her to jerk back and ended up hitting her back forcefully against a set of lockers that were thankfully unoccupied. But the jolt caused a pen, or something sharp to stab her in the back of her ribs through her bag that was slung over her one shoulder. She winced as she pushed herself away from the lockers, relieving the pressure and she groaned at the dull ache that remained behind, throbbing annoyingly.

"Jumpy much?"

Brittany looked up and if she was surprised to find Santana walking next to her moments ago she was absolutely flabbergasted to find she had stopped walking when she had and that she was addressing her. Brittany closed her eyes wishing to be anywhere but where she was. Hoping to be back in her bed when she opened her eyes she was disappointed that when she did open them she was still in the hallway, staring directly at the confused face of the head cheerleader.

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"For... being jumpy?" She asked hoping for any clue as to why the girl in front of her still remained. Was the lashing about to start? The name calling and severe humiliation was bound to begin at any moment. She quickly darted her eyes behind Santana to check for anymore cheerleaders but none were present.

Santana raised an eyebrow as she had the day before and looked slightly bemused. "Hmmm, well if you were going to apologize for anything I could think of a few better things than your apparent lack of nerve control."

"Really?" She was on autopilot again, not knowing what to say but saying things anyway. Why couldn't she think before she spoke? Why couldn't she just not speak until her brain told her mouth it was okay to open?

"Yeah, like being a total creeper and _spying_ on the Cheerios practice or _eavesdropping_ on private conversations. Those kinds of things." It took Brittany a few moments to realize Santana wasn't speaking about the breakfast cereal, as she couldn't remember watching a cereal practice, that was insane. As Brittany was distracted Santana grabbed onto her elbow and tugged, pulling her along down the hall as she merged into the hallway traffic seamlessly, or maybe it was the other students making room for her. There did seem to be more empty space surrounding them than anyone else in the hall.

The stares started immediately. Seeing the new girl with the head cheerleader apparently stirred up gossip and she witnessed groups whispering behind hand-covered lips to each other. A few looked at Brittany with concern before averting their eyes when they realized Brittany was looking back at them. Some stared, wide eyed and fearful, others, mostly other Cheerios, not the cereal, smirked knowingly with sharp, amused eyes.

"What's your next class?"

Brittany's whole body tensed so abruptly at the captains voice that her legs locked automatically, causing the cheerleader to lose her grip on Brittany's elbow as she continued moving some steps ahead. She turned back around to face Brittany and she wore the same confused look she had the day before when Brittany had pulled away from her in pain.

Brittany stood frozen, she felt her whole body vibrating. She hadn't known what she was feeling until Santana had broken the silence. She was leading her somewhere to get her revenge, all of the other student's reactions had made that clear. Santana didn't lead a nobody around for no reason. She thought she could handle it. A few choice insults and maybe a threat or two and the occasional shove in the hallway. She'd seen others put up with the same treatment numerous times, so why couldn't she survive it.

It had been so long since she had been one of the victims. Her rules for remaining invisible had protected her for years and she wasn't ready to have her bubble burst just yet. She wasn't ready to live through that kind of humiliation, she needed time. She needed to go back to yesterday and not follow the sound of the Cheerio's music, and to definitely not show up the Head Cheerio. She needed to go back so that she could _fix_ what she'd done. She needed to start over to stay an invisible. She felt like she was about to crumble like a castle made of cards, the slightest breeze would knock her already unsteady knees.

"Hey, I-" Santana tried to speak, but Brittany was panicking once more. She wasn't ready. She didn't want this. She couldn't handle it.

Brittany took a gasping breath that felt shaky entering her lungs and turned around, starting to walk in the direction they had just come from. "My class is this way," she mumbled.

"Wait!" Santana called but Brittany kept walking.

She could only hear the blood pounding in her ears and she didn't stop. She was jostled by a few other students bumping into her but soon broke free of most of the crowd and was able to pick up her pace. She rounded the corner at the end of the hall and leaned up against the lockers covering the wall. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes, counting to ten. When that didn't calm her she began touching her thumbs to each of her fingers in rhythmic order, back and forth starting with her pointer finger and then middle, ring and pinkie and then repeating the action in reverse. Soon she was able to hear other, far off conversations and not just the pounding in her head and was able to look down the hall without seeing the snake like ghosts of veins in her eyes.

The warning bell didn't startle her as much as she thought it would after whatever attack she had just overcome. She berated herself for acting like such a spazz and promised herself that she wasn't about to let her mind go blank around Santana anymore. She needed to remain coherent.

She straightened the hem of her shirt and the strap around her shoulder and entered the main hall once more. She quickly made her way to her next class, knowing she was cutting it close to being late.

She nearly sprinted into her next class and headed straight for the teachers desk as the bell rang again. The man standing behind the desk was younger than her math teacher and had a full head of brown hair. He smiled at her pleasantly as she approached him and found the corners of her own mouth lifting as well.

"Hi, you must be Brittany," he said handing her a neat folder and Spanish dictionary. "I'm Mr. Schuester."

"Are you psychic?" Word vomit. Brittany sighed and vowed to stop drinking the tap water.

His smile only grew and a small chuckle escaped his lips. "No, your name is on my class registry to start today."

"Oh, right."

"Take a seat where ever there's a spot." He removed his gaze from her to purview the class. "I guess there's not really much choice." He laughed but this time it looked forced, his white teeth remained hidden behind tightened lips as his gaze remained focused on the row of desks along the windows on the far side of the classroom. Brittany followed his eyes and found herself not all that surprised to find they were trained on Santana. Of course she would also be in this class. The universe couldn't possibly have given her an hours break from the intimidating Latina.

Brittany's eyes noticed the desk behind Santana, the last in the row, was empty and she quickly swept her eyes around the room, realization dawned on her that there was only one empty seat in the room. She sighed which caught the teachers attention once more.

"I'll try to get you a different seat tomorrow." He smiled kindly at her.

"No," she answered, squaring her shoulders. "It'll be fine." She gave him another smile and walked passed him when he nodded his head sympathetically. She couldn't help the feeling that she was a lamb going to slaughter. And it didn't help that she suddenly noticed others watching her with the same sad sympathy as Mr. Schuester. "I'll be fine," she whispered lowly so only she could hear. If she said it aloud maybe it would make the words true.

Santana was busying herself staring out the window and Brittany thought that she might actually be able to sneak passed her while she was distracted. That was until she stepped on the lace of one of her shoes that must have come undone. She tripped at her sudden short step and was thrown off balance, knocking into the desk of an Asian girl. Brittany quickly pushed herself up and apologized to the girl for knocking a few papers and a pen to the floor. She bent over and retrieved the pen, handing it back to the smiling face of the girl, who told her it wasn't a problem.

Upon continuing her way to her seat she was made aware that her bumbled act had caught the Head Cheerio's attention. She was staring at Brittany with a look that was halfway between bored and annoyed. Her chin rested on her palm, elbow planted on the top of her desk and the corners of her eyes were crinkled in the slightest of glares. When Brittany took a step forward, telling herself again that she could do this, Santana turned to look back outside.

She took quick but careful strides so as to not trip again. Her shoe lace whipped through the air with each step, the plastic tip clacking against the floor and desk legs as she continued on down the aisle. Finally reaching the end she dropped down heavily in her seat, trying to ignore the looks and snickers from the other students. She brought her knee up to her chest, bracing her foot on the edge of the desk chair, and tied a double knot into the lace of her shoe before pulling out her things from her bag.

Mr. Schuester started the class with talking about some end of year project, but did not step in to stop the students who were still staring and laughing at her.

"Have a nice trip?" one brown haired jock asked who happened to be sitting the next row over. He reached out with the back of his hand to hit the arm of another red jacketed male to his right, in the next row, and both chuckled loudly at his joke.

Brittany plastered a blank expression on her face and stared at a discoloration in the wall above the white board at the front of the class. She tried to ignore how many of the closer students eyes were still focused on her. The Spanish teacher's eyes traveled her way and she felt relieved as he watched the interaction, but her relief turned to disappointment and irritation as he turned away in the next moment and continued his speech, addressing the further side of the class directly and didn't look back in her direction.

"Hey, Blondie" the second jock spoke up. "He asked you a question."

Brittany wasn't sure if she had missed something said or if he was still talking about the trip question. She remained facing forward, silently hoping the jocks would get bored and give up.

"Maybe she doesn't speak English?" a different student, sitting in front of the jock to Brittany's right, asked. She was turned in her seat to join in the mocking more fully and from the way her eyes darted hopefully at the boy behind her she was looking for his approval. She was a small girl and was dressed nicely in a white top and navy skirt. Her make-up was a little thick but accentuated her wide eyes and high cheekbones and her auburn hair was cut short, framing her face. The top two buttons of her white blouse were unbuttoned and the jock's eyes glanced to the girls chest, which was obviously the point, before he looked to her face smiling. The girl blushed a crimson red to match her hair and her smile turned shy. For all of her confidant dress, the girl was blatantly one of the invisibles. Why try to break out of that spot? Brittany would give anything to switch roles with the girl. If she wanted attention than she could have it.

"I'm sure she does," the further jock replied looking at the girl who spoke and from Brittany's brief glance she saw a lingering look in his eyes as he watched the girl. For her part the invisible was ignorant of his staring and was focused on the guys friend who was staring hungrily at her. "She's just ignoring us because she thinks she's hot shit." His anger grew as he continued to be ignored. Brittany would have laughed at the ridiculous irony of his words if her jaw wasn't clenched so tightly.

"She's probably just a silly redneck from one of those back-water towns down south." Brittany saw out of her peripheral that the comment caused the head cheerleader in front of her to stiffen. "Her talk probably isn't up to snitch and doesn't wanna open her dumb mouth 'cause of the embarrassment." It was the girl directly to Brittany's right that had spoken, obviously eager to join the cool club. Brittany forced herself to not look at the girl. "But because she is blonde she probably couldn't notice her own stupidness."

"Hypocrite. Do you even _hear_ the words spouting from your mouth?" Brittany was surprised when Santana turned and addressed the girl. Santana's brow was furrowed and her glare was cold, like Brittany could feel the second hand frostbite on her skin from just being in the same vicinity. "My IQ _literally_ just dropped listening to you speak."

"W-what?" the girl sputtered in a whisper, obviously not expecting a negative response from the other girl. Actually Brittany herself had been just as surprised. She hadn't expected Santana to waste her time with something as childish as mocking her little trip but she hadn't expected her to speak up to her tormentors. She had been happy to just expect Santana to ignore her and the others.

"You would think with bat ears like yours you wouldn't have a hearing problem." Brittany couldn't help herself, she looked between the angered brunette in front of her to the freckle face of the girl sitting beside her. She had her hair half up in an clip and her ears stuck out from the sides of her head. The girls eyes widened at the insult and Brittany was half expecting the girl to make a retort, but the Cheerio held top ranking in the group and the freckled girl knew there was no response that could fix the predicament she'd mistakenly found herself in.

"Hey, back off Santana." The jock who started everything said, pulling his eyes from the other girls chest to smile at the Latina. "We're just having a little fun with the fresh meat."

"Oh I know what _meat_ you're thinking with Josh," she switched her glare to him, sneering deviously, before leaning forward to get closer to the white bloused girl. "And it's a pretty miniscule thing to be allowed in control," she said holding up her thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart. The Jock's face crimsoned as he glared venomously at Santana. Santana just leaned back against the windowed wall and crossed her arms, amusement written on her face.

Brittany looked around the room once more, noticing for the first time that Santana was the only cheerleader in the class. There was no protective barrier surrounding her here. Brittany thought of jumping in between the two, to help the girl who somehow became her savior, taking all the attention on herself and removing it from Brittany. The Jock was fuming and was easily three times the size of the small girl seated in the desk in front of her.

She had almost convinced herself to jump in when Santana uncrossed her arms to rest her right one on Brittany's desk. Brittany looked to the brunette's face and saw her eyes rapidly move and connect with hers before being torn away to observe the ball of muscles a few feet away. No one else would have noticed it, they hadn't been looking for it and the only reason Brittany herself had noticed was because those were the kind of things she watched for. Santana had known Brittany was going to jump in, she had known and had warned her not to. But why?

Santana's fingers started strumming against Brittany's desk. Her short manicured nails clicking against the wooden top in rhythm, one-two-three-four then a brief pause and one-two-three-four, continuing on for an excruciating amount of time although it couldn't have been longer than a minute at most. Brittany looked up from where she had been staring at Santana's small tan hand, fascinated as the tendons on the back of her hand stuck out each time she lifted and dropped a finger, to Josh, who was angrier than anyone she had ever seen before. His clenched jaw was still rotating, grinding teeth groaned in protest, and his hands were balled into fists. His nostrils flared and he was breathing heavily as a sheen of sweat began to cover his red-humiliated face.

"Fucking bit-" he started and as the first syllable left his mouth Brittany was aware of the four count against her desk disappear. It was replaced by a loud smack as Santana's palm connected sharply with the flat surface. The jock's jaw snapped, teeth meeting loudly, just as Jes' and Brittany's had done the day before.

"I'm sure you don't want to finish that comment, right Tiny Tim?" His glare deepened and he was obviously about to talk back when Santana continued leaning forward. "Don't make me go all Lima Heights," she paused meeting Josh's eyes. "You _wouldn't_ want that." Her voice dropped and the energy radiating off of the Latina was almost visible. The boy sitting in front of Santana leaned forward over his desk and the two girls who had spoken up earlier to help Josh in his teasing now averted their eyes and leaned away from the cheerleader. Even the two jocks themselves, seemingly subconsciously shifted away from her.

Brittany however found herself leaning over her desk, getting closer. So Santana really was the girl from Lima Heights. The cheerleader was vibrating, almost unnoticeable in anger and heat was radiating off of her. As she leaned forward she noticed Santana still had her right hand braced on Brittany's desk, and her pinkie finger was twitching. She couldn't stop her body as it moved forward a few more inches only stopping when her stomach came in contact with the hard edge of the desk. The abrupt stop caused a few strands of Brittany's hair to fall over her shoulder and brush against the exposed skin of the cheerleader's arm.

Santana's breathing changed at the contact, she was still fuming and her breaths were rapid but they became less forced as the touch distracted her. Her eyes remained on Josh and when a moment later he huffed and turned to face the front of the class Santana's head lifted and chest puffed out in victory. "Thought not."

All parties involved turned to stare at the front of the class where Mr. Schuester was still explaining the requirements for the project. When he mentioned it would be worth a third of their final grade Brittany winced, knowing she would have to talk to him later in the week and get the scoop on the whole thing. She didn't think he would be too angry that she hadn't heard his spiel today as he had been the one to leave her fending for herself against the jocks. Well, she had almost been left to fend for herself.

Brittany shifted to stare at the back of Santana's head, who was taking up her previous position of looking outside, not even feigning interest in what the teacher was saying. Out of the corner of her eye Brittany could see a few students glance at her and she forced her eyes away from Santana, lest she be caught staring, and busied herself with flipping through the folder Mr. Schuester had handed her at the beginning of class. Noticing it was just filled with different work sheets and dates that each was due she flipped it shut again.

She tried to keep herself occupied by looking through the Spanish dictionary and then observing how Mr. Schuester's sweater vest creased as he walked back and forth at the front of the class, using his arms more than was probably necessary. She then counted the bricks covering the front wall, noticing that the white board was in fact not centered within the room, five bricks separated it from the left wall and seven from the right and then finally opted to mimic the girl in front of her and stared out the window.

There wasn't much to occupy her mind out there either as there was only a lone tree covering the small field, but at least she was able to watch as a squirrel ran across the lawn and up a tree with puffed cheeks, before disappearing within the green canopy and a few birds flitted in and out of sight.

"You going to be able to find your next class alright this time?"

Brittany looked up from the windowsill where she was keeping an eye on a black unknown bug crawling back and forth along the window, trying to figure out a weakness in the weird force field. Santana was standing beside her desk looking down on her. She held a thick binder hugged to her chest and Brittany realized they were the only ones left in the room. Had she really missed the bell and all the commotion of students leaving?

Finally realizing she hadn't answered the other girl Brittany sprang into action, sweeping all her things from the desk into her light blue back pack, not caring at this point to organize any of it. "Yeah, of course. Why?" She stood as she closed the clip of her bag and Santana had to take a step back in order to not be bumped. "Sorry," Brittany spoke as she noticed her clumsiness. Today just wasn't her day.

"Well because you took off in the wrong direction for your first two classes." Santana retorted, ignoring Brittany's apology.

Brittany laughed and knew she was turning slightly red. Somehow, even though she was at a loss as to her standing with the cheerleader, she found that she was less nervous in the Latina's company after what happened earlier in class. "I've got English next, room 203, up the stairs on the far side of the school, right?"

"Mr. Jenkins?" Santana asked tilting her head in thought as Brittany nodded her head in reply.

"Yeah, his door has this big ass poster that says '_Shakespeare only dies when people abandon the theatre._'" Santana looked back to meet Brittany's eyes. "Too bad. Doesn't look too good for Shakespeare, huh?" Was Santana actually joking with her? But as Santana's lips lifted in a genuine bemused smirk Brittany couldn't stop the grin that stretched her own lips wide.

"Totally." she found herself responding. "I'll make sure to keep that on the D-L when I get there though."

"Good plan."

Both girls turned and made there way through the empty room to the exit. As they neared the hallway Brittany became more agitated. "Thanks," she blurted in Santana's direction. "For back there, before," she supplied.

Santana opened her mouth to respond but as they stepped through the doorway they found their route was blocked off by another body.

"What did you say to him?" Jes demanded. She was wearing a matching uniform to Santana's and had two other Cheerios flanking her. Jes' hand were both situated on her hips and she scowled down her nose at Santana.

"What are you talking about?" Santana replied, spine straightening.

"Josh." Jes supplied as an answer. Santana didn't respond though and forced Jes to elaborate. "He came out of nowhere about five minutes ago and just started attacking me." Her hands moved from her hips to motion around her as she told the story. "Was being completely spazzy and didn't make much sense at first. I finally got him to shut his damn pie hole long enough to calm him down. He stormed off in a huff because _you_-" ,she pointed a finger at Santana, jabbing her in the chest, "-opened your big trap about something I told you in private."

Santana swatted Jes' hand away roughly and it caught the edge of the door frame beside her. "Get your hands off me, Baby Giant."

"You can't call me that anymore." Jes huffed, rubbing her wrist with her uninjured hand.

"I can call you what ever I damn well please, especially when it's you who came here to attack me about something that's _irrelevant_." Brittany wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. There was no rule in her guide to invisibility that covered how to stay out of sight in the middle of a cheerleader argument. "If you'd stop being so immature maybe I'd be able to think of a better name for you, but right now Baby Giant seems to fit the bill."

"Irrelevant? Josh probably isn't going to speak to me for a week because of you and your mouth."

"If he would keep his mouth shut like a good little boy I wouldn't have said anything."

"He said him and Ken were just having it out with a new girl and you butted in. Is that true?" Jes suddenly seemed to notice Brittany was present and frowned deeply in her direction. "Is this her? Why would you stick up for this loser?" Jes looked Brittany up and down and unlike when Santana had done it the day before, Brittany felt her whole body stiffen and crawl. Jes' hair was slightly lighter in colour than Santana's and although she was tanned, Brittany could now see that it was the fake, spray on kind. If she was trying to immitate Santana she was failing miserably. Her green eyes seemed to scrutinize every inch of Brittany and only were pulled away when her captain spoke up.

"I didn't stick up for her. I-"

"That's what Josh said."

"To hell with what that monkey's ass has to say. I'm saying I didn't stick up for no one." Santana took a heavy step forward and Jes retreated a stride in return, bumping shoulders with the two Cheerios behind her. "I like quiet in this class. If I have to endure another year of it I'm going to do so as painlessly as possible. That means I _don't_ want to hear what the other students are gossiping about. I _don't_ want to hear the complaints about assignments or difficulties. I _don't_ want to be asked to borrow pens or pencils and the only, and I mean _only_, reason I allowed Josh and his buddy to sit anywhere near me was because they knew the rules." She took another step forward and jabbed her own finger into Jes' chest, a lot harder than the other girl had done to her and Jes winced. "Now, you are going to go tell that douche that if he wants to remain anywhere near the _awesomeness_ that is Santana Lopez he will abide by those rules. If he finds he can't follow these simple instructions then he can go sit by the AV club next class. I'm sure Zizes won't mind taking a few rounds out of him."

Jes' mouth gaped, fish-like, before she regained her bearing, but realized by Santana's tense frame that she was not in a position to talk back. Her gaze drifted back to Brittany. "What are you still doing here?" She sneered savagely right through her. Brittany thought she would definitely have burst into flames had the other girl the power to do so. "Fuck off already!"

Brittany glanced from Jes' cruel stare to look in Santana's direction. When Santana did not speak up against Jes' command and only averted her eyes to scrutinize her own nails, Brittany took that as hint enough. She really hadn't spoken against Josh and her other tormentors to help her. Santana was just trying to restore her peace and quiet after Brittany had disrupted it. With that thought in mind Brittany darted passed Jes and squeezed by the other Cheerio's elbow before power walking down the hall towards her next class.


	6. Chapter 6

_Here's the next update for y'all. The next update may take a little more time for me to get out as it seems to be a more difficult task than I had first anticipated. But I hope I don't keep you guys waiting for too long._

_**Unicornclouds:**__ Thank you for being a super speedy reviewer! :) You are most definitely not annoying and I am not sure about other pairings at the moment. This is obviously going to remain Brittana centric and I guess my fingers and mind will make up the rest as we go._

_**xKara:**__ Thanks for reviewing and I kind of hope so too, although not all my hopes for characters seem to pan out as I write lol._

_**4evamuzic:**__ May I just say a huge thank you for the compliment you gave. I have been debating writing a Brittana story in high school because of the Santana insults that are required for obvious reasons. But to hear I did not disappoint was amazing. Although I will admit writing insults for characters I make up seems to be way easier than writing them for the actual Glee characters. I mean how can you top an actual legitimate Santana Lopez Insult? The answer: no one can. _

_Also big thanks to all who are silently reading and the Guests who reviewed as well. _

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Brittany's English class was pretty uneventful, and she found herself falling back into her old routine of answering questions only when she was sure of the correct answer and not staring at anyone overly much, a feat that was easier with the absence of one raven haired Cheerio. She even acted completely normal and was polite to the dark girl seated beside her, whose name was Mercedes, when she asked to borrow Brittany's white-out, which Brittany had commented was racist of the company so she decided to call it plain, Out. Mercedes had smiled at her comment and had proceeded to cover the 'White-' part of the label with the Out.

When English was over Brittany made her way to her locker, and for once things were going her way because Santana was nowhere in sight. She was just grabbing her bagged-lunch from her locker when she heard students down the hall laughing. She looked around her locker door and found the commotion was centered around a small brunette wearing a reindeer sweater, plaid skirt and knee-high socks. At first Brittany thought the laughter was over the girls wardrobe but as the girl made her way in Brittany's direction she was able to make out a blue tint to the girl's hair and face. As the girl practically speed walked passed her, Brittany could see tears in the smaller girls eyes and could clearly make out the still frozen chunks that clearly belonged to a slushy in the girls brown hair.

The laughter followed the girl down the hall as other students laid eyes on the scene and even a couple Cheerios and a few other students, who were glad at the cheerleaders approval, followed the poor brunette down the hall. They called out to her 'Rasp-Berry' and then fell into fits of laughter which the tormented girl took as her queue to start jogging to put distance between them.

Brittany frowned at the scene but wasn't sure what to make of it and turned to find an exit out of the school so she could eat in peace. She'd only taken two steps down the same hallway the crying girl had come from when she stopped dead in her tracks.

Rounding the far corner was a group in red. These weren't cheerleaders though; they were a group of jocks wearing matching jackets. There were probably five or six of them but Brittany's attention was drawn to the center-most guy. The others were clapping him on his shoulders and giving him high-fives as the whole lot of them roared with laughter. They came closer but Brittany was still as frozen as if she had had a slushy dumped on her head. This surprise was happening too often as of late and she would have to figure it out sooner rather than later if she wanted any hope of falling back into her preferred role. Acting odd did not classify as normal and certainly was bringing her more attention than she had ever wanted.

As the group passed her, still laughing, the guy in the center looked up and met her eyes. The side of his mouth lifted into a smirk and he winked at her. As the group continued on down the hall Brittany's head followed their path, eyes glued to the boys mohawk.

Brittany was finally able to make it out of the school with no further delays after the mohawked boys departure. She found a spot under a lone tree, incidentally the same one which she had stared at through Spanish class and took out her lunch and started eating without really registering what she was putting in her mouth. She frequently looked up to try to spot the squirrel from earlier, and decided to name him Rocky, but was disappointed when he never showed himself. She did however leave a few pieces of her granola bar on the ground around her for him to find later.

She looked around the grounds and spotted a few groups sitting outside eating their lunches as well. She knew the majority of students would be eating their lunches in the cafeteria and had obviously avoided the room, probably the same way these other students were. Her mind kept wandering back to the mohawked boy, which of course caused her mind to drift to Santana, who was probably at this point in the cafeteria. She wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of the possibility of the guy going to school with her when she realized Santana was but the thought just had never crossed her mind.

She couldn't fit the two halves together. Santana and the mohawked boy must both live in Lima Heights and then going to school together would explain why Brittany had seen them together the other night. But were they together, like boyfriend and girlfriend? The boy wasn't bad looking and was obviously in a high social standing that it wasn't so far-fetched for Brittany to believe they could be dating. Cheerleader and Football Star, wasn't that the all American dream couple?

But the thought of them as a couple made her squirm against the tree behind her. Why did it bother her so much to think about? She just wanted to forget about the both of them but found it impossible. One would pop into her head, most often the Latina, and then a picture of the other would soon follow. It was like a sick case of cat and mouse. Brittany tried to evade but the sneaky thoughts still found her. By the end of her lunch hour she was no more able to clear her mind as she had been since she had arrived in Lima.

Her History class was even less eventful than her English class had been. Brittany, aside from the distracting thoughts of two people, was starting to relax as each minute passed without having unwanted attention drawn to herself. Phys Ed was her last class of the day and after History she hurried towards the gym to try to catch the teacher still in the office. Her luck must have changed because there was a large woman seated behind the desk when she arrived. The woman introduced herself as Coach Beiste and smiled widely as Brittany asked for a change of gym clothes.

By the time Brittany entered the girls changing room the last two girls were exiting. The room smelled pleasant, but was a culmination of many perfumes, soaps and lotions that was slightly overbearing. Brittany decided to take her time getting changed and putting her hair up in a messy pony. She found an empty locker and stuffed her school bag and clothes inside before locking it with a combination lock Coach Beiste had supplied for her, writing the combination on the inside of the tongue to her sneaker so she could find it if ever she forgot. Thinking that she had stalled for long enough so the other students would be too busy, with whatever activities were scheduled for the day, to notice her late arrival, she made her way to the gym.

When she entered Coach Beiste spotted her straight away and made her way to Brittany's side.

"Hey there Brittany. Find everything in there alright?" she asked, placing a hand on Brittany's right shoulder.

"Yeah, everything is all good." Brittany smiled to hide the fact she was biting her cheek. Pain laced through her right arm again and she reached her arms up to tighten her pony that wasn't the slightest bit loose just to have an excuse to shrug the woman's hand off to relieve the pressure. Brittany pretended to scratch her shoulder as she rubbed some of the soreness out of it. She looked around the gym to distract herself from the water accumulating in her eyes.

She hadn't noticed her when she first entered the room because she was dressed as everyone else, but there was no mistaking those cimmerian eyes for anyone else. They were glued in Brittany's direction. First on her hand that was now rubbing circles over her painful bruise and then up to meet Brittany's own. All Brittany could think was that she was glad they were in a large room, she'd definitely be able to avoid the girl here. She planned to not become an inconvenience or annoyance for Santana anymore, only bad things could come of it. Avoidance was key to her plans and seriously, how hard could it be? She'd spent the last five years of her life avoiding any and all cheerleaders and had previous to that done the same thing to similar bullies. She'd been able to fall back into her invisible status in her last two classes, why not continue that momentum here?

"Did you hear that?" Coach Beiste asked while nudging Brittany with her elbow.

"Huh?"

"I said, I like to track my students progress throughout the year. We have tests quarterly to see how well you all are doing."

"Oh, right. That sounds good." She finally tore her eyes from Santana's and began the avoiding phase of her plan by turning her back to the cheerleader and giving Coach Beiste her full attention.

"Okay, super. But we need a starting point to measure all the students from." Coach Beiste explained.

"Makes sense. You can't tell a snail that he did a good job in a race if you don't know what his good is right?"

"Um, exactly my point," she paused seemingly deep in thought, "I think. Anyway, so the rest of the students did their base test, as I like to call it, two weeks ago when the new year started up."

"Oh," Brittany finally caught on to what the coach was referring to. "You need me to stay after class or something to do mine?"

"Oh, no I wouldn't want to keep you after school hours. I do think, however, that maybe you should take the first half of the class to complete it. It usually takes a whole period but that's with everyone clambering over one another to get everything done. You should be able to snap it off in a jiff."

"Oh, okay then that sounds alright too." But it really didn't. Doing the aptitude test while everyone else was busy doing their own was alright, but doing one where you're on display for the other students to see was just not something that Brittany was going to enjoy at all.

"Great," Beiste boomed enthusiastically, "now to get you a spotter." She looked around at the other students, who seemed to be randomly placed throughout the large space in groups separated into obvious social statuses, and Brittany copied her, once more looking around the gym.

Santana was leaning up against the folded up stands and was surrounded by a group of six girls. Quinn and Jes were the only ones Brittany knew by name but the girl with the red streaks in her hair was also there, Santana had called her Skunkhead right? The other three girls Brittany recognized from the practice the day before but could not pinpoint their positions. She thought that the shorter blonde had been a cartwheeler and was almost positive the taller blonde was one of the girls at the bottom of Santana's pyramid, but couldn't be one hundred percent sure on either.

There was a group of guys, which Brittany assumed were the jocks, on the opposite side of the stands, mimicking the cheerleaders position. They were laughing loudly and taking turns punching each other in the shoulder, very productive. Brittany noticed a mohawk in the midst of them.

Taking up spots on the inner part of the gym were the lower social groups, There were a couple different groups scattered that were obviously invisibles and one large group that contained the losers and geeks. They were evidently trying to blend in in a large group as Brittany herself could vouch was the safest way to hide from the popular kids.

There were over thirty kids in all in the gym, some of which Brittany could recognize from classes already but others that she hadn't seen in any.

"I thought Jes was a Senior." She hadn't thought she spoke aloud but realized she had when Beiste answered her, saying that she liked to combine the classes up into split grades 'to add healthy competition into the mix.' Brittany thought that it would just allow the popular students in a higher grade to torment some of the losers even more and wouldn't cause any increased competition at all, but she didn't voice her opinion.

Beiste continued to scan the choice of students as if she was picking the prime cut of meat from a butcher. Brittany herself didn't think she could care less who she was stuck with as a spotter for this. Sure she didn't want it to be some egotistical cocky football player that would just ogle her the whole time, but she would be able to put up with it if needed. As long as it wasn't-

"Santana!"

Shit! What had she done to the universe that it felt the need to punish her at every turn today? Brittany tried not to look in the cheerleader's direction. She was pretending to be interested in the jock's game of who was the biggest baby and would wince at being punched, but did noticed that Santana hadn't acknowledged the coach's call.

"Lopez!" Coach Beiste called louder, causing many other students at the further end of the gym to turn. Only when the questioning glares in Santana's direction increased to include most of the students in the room did the head cheerleader look up from her perfectly manicured nails.

"Yeah?" She sounded annoyed again. At least the annoyance was only secondhand Brittany's fault. Beiste motioned for the girl to make her way over and Santana slowly followed the orders. Like a lazy house cat, Santana was obviously reluctant to follow commands.

"Brittany here is going to perform her base test so she can get caught up with the rest of you. While I'm dealing with the other students I'd like you to spot her." Coach Beiste explained when Santana approached. Santana rolled her eyes and looked about to say something but only sighed and nodded her head instead. "Good. Now hustle up I don't want to wait all period for you two to get through this."

Beiste handed Santana a bunch of sheets, a pencil and a stop watch before striding out into the middle of the gym, calling the other students to gather around. Brittany thought she heard Santana mumble something about time required not being her problem before the cheerleader took off towards the stands that were set up on the opposite side of the gym.

Brittany followed and couldn't help her eyes from roaming the Latina's figure. She now wore the same thing as Brittany, a black tee that read Mckinley across the front in white letters and black spandex shorts. Her hair was still up in its high pony but seemed less formal without the red uniform beneath it. As Santana hopped up the stands and took a seat on the second row Brittany almost followed but was stopped by the hard look directed at her. She instead stood frozen at the base of the stands and looked to the smaller girl questioningly.

"I get to sit here," Santana motioned to the stands by sweeping her arm palm up, "and you get to stay down there and do what I tell you to," she finished pointing to the gym floor in front of where she was seated, speaking in a condescending tone.

"Like what?" Brittany asked, choosing to ignore the girl's attitude.

Santana looked down at the papers in her hand. "Like sit-ups." She stated keeping her eyes on the page.

"Oh, so I do what the paper tells you to tell me. That's not the same as doing what you tell me." Brittany stated plainly.

"How isn't it?" Santana shot back, lifting her eyes from the paper. "I say do sit-ups and you do them." Brittany realized that somehow her statement offended the other girl but she hadn't meant to in the slightest. Maybe it was best if she just kept her mouth shut around Santana. "Usually laying down is required to do sit-ups."

"Right." Brittany laid down, knees bent, sticking her toes under the panel of the stands. "How many?"

"Until I say stop." When Brittany raised her eyebrow for clarification Santana spoke up once more. "One minute."

Brittany crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Santana's signal to start. She let her mind go blank as she did the required sit-ups and then push-ups. She wasn't able to remember half of the exercises that she had to do but followed Santana's instructions automatically, moving from one position to the next or to a different spot in the gym, Santana following to use required equipment for some, the pull-up bars being one such item that Brittany could remember.

They found themselves back at the stands where they had started. Brittany was doing jumping jacks when Quinn walked over from somewhere else in the gym and plopped herself down next to Santana. The Latina turned her attention from Brittany to speak to the other girl. Brittany was too far away to hear the conversation and became slightly bothered by watching the two girls.

She finished the required number of jumping jacks and yelled at Santana to get her attention. She shouldn't have to yell. Santana glanced down at the stop watch in her hand and wrote something on one of the sheets in her lap.

"Okay stairs now." Santana spoke without taking her eyes from Quinn.

"There are no stairs here," Brittany retorted rolling her shoulders. She was starting to feel the burning in her muscles as they protested her work out. Maybe they would have to go out into the hall to finish the evaluation. Santana would have to come with her.

"What do you call these?" Santana finally turned towards her gesturing to the stands she was seated on, Quinn chuckled. "Just do step-ups. That's what it means anyway."

"Well you didn't say that." Brittany responded walking towards the stands.

"What ever. Just count how many you do and I'll tell you when to stop." Santana fiddled with the stop watch to reset it.

"I thought that was the entire purpose of having a spotter." She must have forgotten her rule about not talking to Santana. But it was the truth. What was the point in having a spotter that didn't spot anything.

Santana's eyes lifted from the small device in her hands to take in Brittany's form. Brittany stood at the bottom of the stands, waiting for her signal to begin, and was jumping on the spot.

"What was that?" Santana asked.

"Huh?"

"You just said something. What did you say?" Brittany met Santana's eyes for the first time since they began the evaluation and saw anger in her dark orbs and had to wonder if Santana hadn't actually heard her.

"Nothing. Come on Coach Beiste wanted us to finish this quickly."

Santana let the question go and gave her the signal to start. Brittany stepped up onto the step of the bleachers and back down, each time one of her feet hit the first board of the stands they clanged and Brittany could feel the vibration beneath her. Brittany continued counting and looked up to the two girls a few steps up from her. Santana was still talking with Quinn but in hushed tones as Santana passed the sheets of paper to Quinn to purview and then grabbed them back fiercely after a few moments, another scowl plastered to her face. Brittany wondered if the girl ever went an hour without that look crossing her beautiful face. Her features probably relaxed when she slept right? Suddenly she felt the urge to want to watch the other girl sleep. She'd probably be adorable. An adjective that rarely could be used on her in her awake periods. Fierce, scary, intimidating, beautiful, alluring, mysterious, yes. Adorable, not so much. Maybe when she was confused with her nose all crinkly.

Suddenly Santana signaled Brittany to stop and wrote down the number Brittany remembered. She had been distracted slightly but was sure she remembered counting the number she had voiced. Santana didn't argue so it must have been a reasonable amount.

"Okay last one, suicides." Santana read from the list. "Let me know when you are ready."

"I'm not going to kill myself just because you said so."

Santana's head whipped up from scanning the papers in her hand. "What? No, that's not-" She shook her head, tightening her jaw and Brittany could swear she was trying not to smile. "It's an exercise. You start at one end of the gym and sprint to that line." She pointed to the free throw line on the basketball court, her voice was back to her bored tone. "And then touch your hand to the line, turn around and touch the base line and do the same for the half court, three-quarters and other end line." Brittany nodded her head not knowing if Santana had understood she was joking or not. Santana's attention was suddenly glued back to the girl beside her.

Quinn was laughing at the interaction and Santana smiled at her before leaning over to whisper something in the other cheerleaders ear. Santana's elbow nudged the other blonde which nearly caused her to fall back in the dip behind her. Quinn yelped before she caught herself by planting her right hand behind her. She glared back at the dark-haired girl who burst out in a fit of giggles. Santana leaned forward and her shoulders shook. Quinn straightened herself and pushed Santana's shoulder which caused the unprepared girl to fall sideways, catching herself by raising her elbow to the bench beside her.

"H-hey," Santana said obviously trying to sound affronted but it came out the least threatening Brittany had ever heard through her still constant laughter.

"You deserved it." Quinn smiled.

Santana shrugged her shoulders in agreement and finally was able to get her giggles under control. She wiped her eyes of tears, being careful not to smudge her make-up, and then picked up the papers she had dropped. It was then that she must have remembered Brittany was watching the interaction. Brittany felt a mix of amusement and disappointment, which confused her. How could those two things be felt at the same time, happy and sad?

"Um, are you ready yet?"

Brittany's attention was drawn back to the physical world and looked down to the far side of the gym. She motioned to the half way point before looking back up to the two girls in the stands. Santana looked to where Brittany had pointed and the mirth in her eyes disappeared and was replaced by annoyance once more.

"Hey Frankenteen! Mind moving your giant jiggly body out of our way or do I have to hire a crane to do it?"

The brown-haired boy frowned at Santana but otherwise didn't respond. He did shuffle himself and the pole he had been trying to set up for the volleyball court out of their way though. The boy was tall but his skin was a healthy pink color not green and he didn't seem to jiggle when he moved so Brittany was at a loss as to why Santana would say such things. Brittany's frown didn't seem to deter the head Cheerio from turning and smiling widely motioning to the now cleared space as if she had done something especially chivalrous.

Brittany turned to face the opposite wall, bent her knees and waited for Santana's signal.

"Ready? Go!" She heard Santana's raspy voice and immediately she sprinted forward. It only took her a couple long strides to reach the first line. She planted her feet, one over the line, expecting to stop. Instead the gym floor was a lot more slippery than she had anticipated. Her one leg fell out from under her and she practically did the splits. She bent over placing her hands on the line before quickly pushing herself up and running back to the end line, passing a very amused couple of cheerleaders. Their laughter was loud and Brittany knew it was attracting the eyes that had not already been on her. It wasn't her fault the stupid floor was dangerously skiddy.

When she reached the end line she slowed down a little before planting her feet. This time when her feet continued to slide on the floor she was already bracing her body for the change in direction. Her one foot braced itself along the wall close to the base line and she used that as leverage to spring herself back down the gym after reaching down to tap the line with her hand.

Santana and Quinn were still snickering and it made Brittany mad. Embarrassed and mad. It wasn't fair that the only time she was drawing attention from the Latina was when it was at her own expense. Why couldn't she be normal? Why couldn't she show Santana she wasn't a loser, or klutz or ditz? Why couldn't she show her she could do at least one thing right? Why not do just that?

Brittany sped up as she approached the center line instead of slowing down like she had before. She used her momentum to swing her legs out in front of her as she leaned her weight on her left arm, knowing her right was still weak and sore from her bruise. The center line was directly at her waist as she hovered above it, balancing for a split second on her left arm and leg, and she tapped it rapidly with her free hand. She continued in her momentum and brought her right leg up bent beneath her and pushed with all her strength. She didn't bother looking up at Santana and Quinn, she could hear that their laughter had stopped. She did the same at the base line, except she swung both her bent legs around to rest against the wall, her front to the floor, she tapped the line once more and straightened her legs. She flew a good three feet from the wall and landed running down the gym. She repeated the same maneuver, only faster, at the three-quarter mark. On her way back to the base line she braved a look up to the stands. Quinn was squinting at her, like she was deciphering an extremely difficult puzzle and Santana was wide-eyed and her mouth was hanging open.

That look caused Brittany to push harder as she flew down the gym and this time she cleared nearly four feet as she pushed off the wall heading to the other end where she pushed off the opposite wall as well. She was on her return when she noticed Santana seemed to be frozen watching her.

"You better be paying attention Santana. I'm not doing this again," Brittany yelled passing the center line. She saw out of the corner of her eye as Santana seemed to shake herself out of her stupor. Brittany reached down to tap the base line and was thrown into the wall with her speed as her foot caught the wall. She took a moment for her head to stop spinning and catch up to her body before she pushed off the wall and walked in a few circles until the burning in her quads and calves lessened to a dull ache. When the intake of air into her lungs no longer made her want to rip her chest apart at the sandpaper sensation she finally looked up to the others in the gym.

All eyes were on her, literally. Even the jocks took a break from whatever testosterone filled game they were playing to stare at her. It was unnerving. She wasn't used to any eyes on her and having this many felt unnatural. She suddenly wanted to run, get away from them. Her legs shook, this time having nothing to so with any exercise, and she was sure she would collapse at any moment. Just thinking of embarrassing herself like that made her heart rate pick up and her breathing became shaky.

Her gaze drifted from one set of orbs watching her to another. Each time she found a new shade focused her way the panic she was trying to tamp down would rise. She was on the verge of escaping the gym in a wild dash with her remaining strength when she found those eyes. They were trained on her like the rest but instead of rising the already bubbling panic within her Brittany found she was able to breathe again. She hadn't noticed that her lungs had stopped working, but as every muscle in her body was contracted, ready for flight, it was not really surprising her diaphragm had done the same.

With each breath she found her agitation lessen. Their eyes remained locked and for the first time since she could remember Brittany didn't want to look away. No eye contact was essential to remaining invisible, especially when it came to cheerleaders. But as her body relaxed and her mind began to clear of the fog that had been clouding it she realized that Santana's eyes were the only things that had stopped her from making a fool out of herself again.

Although Brittany had liked Coach Bieste well enough earlier when she called out to Santana this time Brittany found herself cursing the teacher from causing Santana's eyes to leave hers. She felt annoyed, probably in the same way the head cheerleader had when she had been taken away from her group to spot Brittany.

"What's her time?"

What time? What was Bieste talking about? Her security had been taken away for the lady to ask a redundant question?

When Santana looked down to the stop watch in her hand and blurted out a number that Brittany wasn't the least interested in she was suddenly aware of the others in the gym again. A collection of 'Oooo's' and 'Ahhh's' went up from the mouths of students spread around the room.

"A new record! Way to go Brittany. I knew you had it in ya kid." Coach Bieste beamed at her, before ducking out of the gym seemingly on some errand.

A few students closer to her congratulated her and she caught a few smiles from other invisibles as well as awed looks from the 'loser' group. But the other cheerleaders in the gym scowled at her. She wasn't sure why they would all be so angry with her beating a stupid timed record. But from their looks she became concerned with what their leader would think.

Her attention was drawn unwillingly back to the stands with Quinn's laughter. She was obviously trying to stifle it, hand covering her mouth, but was failing miserably. Maybe Jes had been talking about her to the other cheerleaders, still mad at her part in Josh's anger that morning and their scowls were in answer to that. Quinn seemed to be alright with the situation, even if her laughter was confusing, she didn't seem angry like the rest of the squad present.

Only when she was able to take a shaky breath did Quinn say anything. "Well S, I guess you have to step up your game if you want to g-get your record back." She burst into a new fit of giggles as Santana turned to glare at her.

Brittany closed her eyes, not wanting to see Santana's displeasure, especially if she directed it to herself, which was likely what was to follow. She'd meant to show Santana she was good at something right? Isn't that what had started this whole thing? Well, she had certainly done just that. And in the process out done her once more. Only this time was much worse. She heard others take up laughing as Quinn was unable to get hers under control. She'd shown her up with others around to witness.

Opening her eyes she scanned the gym. The other cheerleaders in the gym were not following Quinn's example and looked to the floor in discomfort, not knowing what was expected of them. Jes still had her attention glued to Brittany and she was glaring deeply. A few of the cheerleaders paused in their discomfort to shoot hard stares at other students around them who decided to join in the laughter. It was then that Brittany blanched. Not only were most of the jocks laughing considering themselves Quinn's equal in status almost allowing them to get away with it, but many invisibles and to Brittany's horror a few losers were taken up with laughter as well. All poking fun at Santana's expense.

She couldn't bring herself to see Santana's reaction. She was supposed to avoid annoying the Latina, not cause her to be at the center of ridicule. She needed them to stop. Hadn't Santana saved her that morning from this precise thing? Even if she had motives of her own the results were the same. How could she stop them?

"The new girl beat her record by nearly ten seconds!" A boy Brittany didn't know spoke up. "That's kind of pathetic." The large group must have made him brave. The others must have given him a false sense of invincibility. He wasn't a jock, as he wasn't anywhere near any of the obvious jocks situated on the far side of the gym. He was small, both in height and breadth. His sandy colored hair fell messily into his face, easily enough to hide behind. But now he shook it out of his eyes, showing off a spatter of blotchy freckles across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. He looked around him for approval, smugness emanating off of him, as he smiled wide showing off a full set of braces. His features weren't all bad, his eyes were a stunning green and although he lacked the thick muscles of the other jocks his body was toned, he could pass as a runner. He was an invisible. What was with the invisibles in this school trying to break out of that role? 'Stay there and be happy' Brittany wanted to scream at them. Another part of her berated herself, hadn't she been seeking Santana's approval minutes ago?

One person stopped laughing and in a gym full of laughter Brittany was sure she was the only one to have caught it. She looked to the stands to make sure she was right but already knew the boys comment had caused Quinn to snap back to reality. Brittany watched as Quinn's hazel eyes scanned the gym, surprise evident on her face. She was just now noticing what she'd initiated.

Santana stood, facing the freckled boy. She jumped down the two steps in front of her to the gym floor and strode over to him, Quinn following. His eyes went wide as the laughter died around him. The other cheerleaders fell in to encompass him, Jes on one side of Santana and Quinn on the other.

"If you have something to say to me then open that railroad track of a mouth and say it to my face." He lowered his head, sandy hair covering his eyes once more. "Hey Shaggy, when I speak to you I want you to look me in the eyes. Don't go hiding behind that mop." He looked back up at her. His shoulders were squared and he met her eyes directly. Brittany was impressed with his bravado. "I'm impressed. A dog that actually listens."

"Scooby-doo was the dog, Shaggy was his owner." His voice wasn't strong but he kept his gaze on Santana.

"How dare you!" Jes stepped forward, grabbing the boys shirt in a tight fist.

"Jes," Santana said in a surprisingly calm voice.

The two cheerleaders exchanged glances and eventually Jes dropped the fabric in her hand, pushing the boy as she herself backed into her spot in the circle. He fell against the taller blonde behind him and she pushed against his back with a disgusted look. He ended up falling to his knees in front of Santana. Kneeling before the Queen, 'How appropriate,' Brittany found herself thinking.

Santana took a step into the center of the circle. The boy was obviously defeated as he stared at Santana's sneakers. "You were just speaking your mind earlier weren't you?" Brittany saw his head turn slightly from side to side, hair now covering his face once more, looking for an escape or answer to save him. He eventually nodded his head. "I admire that. As you can see I do the same thing. I don't have any qualms with telling even my own squad what I think." She gestured to the right of the circle to the smaller blonde even though he didn't turn to look. "Barbie over here, bleaches her hair an ungodly white color because she doesn't tan very well, unnatural I know. She does it because for some reason she believes her lighter hair will make her skin look darker. Instead she looks like a ghost. Isn't that right Casper?"

"Yes," came the soft reply from the girl.

"But, what I don't like or admire are people speaking up about things they don't understand or can't stand behind. Nod if you are following," he did. "Good, now you called me pathetic-"

"I didn't m-"

"Did I say to speak?" He shook his head. "Good dog. You called me pathetic because another broke my record. If she'd spoken up this would have been a different conversation." Santana turned to look at Brittany, eyes meeting again. "Do you know why?" Brittany found her own head shaking just as the kneeling boys was. "Because she can back up her actions. She beat my record." Santana looked back to the boy in front of her once more. "Can you claim to do the same? Should we test you now?" He shook his head once more. "Speak up, please."

How could anyone make the word 'please' into anything but a request? Santana was able to, and just like everyone in the school, the boy in front of her was not immune to her authority.

"No," he whispered. "P-please."

"Please what? You spoke up earlier. That was your choice Shaggy, now you're answering for it and no one in this room is going to stand behind you."

"It won't happen again, I promise."

"Oh I know it won't." Santana took a step back into the circle once more. "Puck," she called out, eyes never leaving the kneeling boy. He shook, even from Brittany's distance and around the girls surrounding him she could see his whole body spasm.

At the far side of the room Brittany saw the mohawked boy begin to step forward, shouldering his way by the frozen bodies of his friends. With a nickname like that Brittany would have expected a boy with a head shaped like a hockey puck or something, but not Mohawk. She could think of plenty of other names for him, most of which centered around his hair. Why hadn't Santana chosen a more obvious name to call him, Puck just didn't make sense.

"What would be your preferred method of punishment?" Puck spoke up looking to Santana. He continued across the smooth floor, sneakers squeaking with each of his steps. He wore a devious smirk and rubbed his hands together in front of him, anticipation?

"That's up to you," Santana supplied. "I don't need or want the details."

The boy who was still nameless, besides his nickname that Brittany couldn't bring herself to call him by, flinched and fell forward slightly. His hands found the floor in front of him as if in supplication to Santana. "I'm sorry, please."

Brittany found her legs were able to work once more and she stepped forward. Moments ago she would have done everything in her power to stop the humiliation directed at Santana. But now seeing the helpless invisible begging before the Latina Brittany just wanted to protect him. She knew what it was like to not be noticed. What is was like drifting from place to place waiting for a moment when things could change. She'd never dreamed of it happening in high school and although she knew he had brought it on himself, he knew the rules just as she did, she sympathized with him.

She watched as a glistening drop of liquid dropped from the boy's nose onto the gym floor. Why did it have to be this way? He'd only made one stupid decision. He was humiliated. He had learned his lesson. Why torture him further with promises of unknown pain?

She took another step forward and Santana's eyes shifted from Puck's nearing form to hers. Confusion marred her features. As Brittany took another step forward Santana's eyes went wide. She quickly scanned her squad and saw that no one else had noticed Brittany's approach. Santana trained her best hard glare directly at Brittany and Brittany found herself pausing in her movements.

Don't annoy the head Cheerio. That was supposed to be her goal.

But at the sandy haired boys quiet whimper Brittany found herself moving again. Even Santana's narrowed eyes couldn't stop her, she was warning Brittany but at this point Brittany figured she could take whatever the Cheerio had to dish out. She'd protected her earlier, protected an invisible, a nobody, whether she had meant to or not. Wasn't paying it forward the right thing to do. Maybe she could turn this around back on herself. Santana had made a mistake, she should have shown compassion to this boy not her.

It made Brittany mad again. She'd just found her way back into invisibility and Santana was driving her out again. Sure, she could watch like all the others as the boy's humiliation continued, but why? She'd go home and would be haunted by the boys tear-stained face. If she hadn't wanted to prove herself the boy wouldn't have had any ammo to throw. He shouldn't have used it, everyone knew that, but he had. He was sorry. He was crying. And still it wasn't enough for the cheerleader. Why was complete humiliation never enough. Why did they always have to take it one, two or ten steps further than needed.

Brittany was ready to make her presence known, averting her eyes from Santana, but it was then that Coach Beiste chose to walk back into the room. She took one look around and noticed the group of girls right away.

"What's going on here?" she asked sternly and Santana's head whipped in her direction.

"Nothing Coach. He just tripped and we were helping him up." She snapped her fingers and motioned towards the still kneeling boy. Skunkhead stepped forward immediately and grabbed one of his elbows, forcing him to his feet. "Isn't that right, Shaggy?"

He nodded his head but didn't speak and his eyes remained on Santana's feet. Santana stepped forward and her lips moved but Brittany could not hear her whispered words. The boy nodded rapidly though, sandy hair moving in bucking waves before Santana walked passed him and took up her previous spot leaning against the closed stands on the one side of the gym, her squad following obediently.

It was over. Brittany knew she should feel relieved that she hadn't had to step in. Relieved that her position may still be intact. The freckled boy's mutinous act had caused such a stir that most of the students had forgotten it was Brittany who had started the whole thing. But Brittany felt defeated, not relieved. She'd missed her opportunity to help the boy and that fact bothered her. Seeing the look of pure loathing on Santana's face at the cowering boy had stirred something within her. She blamed Santana for his humiliation. She blamed the other cheerleaders for their part in it. She hated Puck for his still upcoming part. But she hated herself as well. Santana had saved her. And no amount of her telling herself it was just by coincidence could make her forget that. She had accepted her help happily as she humiliated Josh, and Brittany hated herself for that now. Brittany wanted to set things right. Maybe if she gave up her safety for someone else it would counter the feeling inside of her. But her chance had slipped through her fingers.

The rest of the class went by at an agonizing pace. Coach Beiste forced the students to finish setting up the two Volleyball courts along the middle of the gym and then split the class up into genders and picked four captains, two boys and two girls. The girls, who consisted of the same Asian whose desk Brittany had tripped into earlier and Casper, took turns selecting others. The pale Cheerio first picked Santana, then Quinn and Jes and the other two squad members when it was her turn. The other captain chose randomly from the losers present. Casper began choosing athletic looking girls after her supply of Cheerios ran out and the Asian seemed to be taking the opposite approach, choosing the most out of shape and uncoordinated of the bunch.

The numbers dwindled to Brittany and one other girl. She was skinny and pale and although she was wearing the thickest glasses Brittany had ever seen, the girl continued to squint through the glass as if she was still unable to focus. It was the cheerleaders turn to pick and she paused, looking between Brittany and the blind girl, not sure who to pick. Brittany tried her best to remain calm, hoping that she was coming off as indifferent.

Santana had stepped forward noticing the girls hesitance in choice and Brittany's eyes were forced as if magnetically to the Latina's. Santana turned to whisper something in the girls ear but her eyes remained on Brittany.

"Chelsea." The cheerleader called but Brittany was only half aware of the other girls surprised jerk and hasty stumble over to join her team. Santana's eyes were still on her. Not sure what to make of the other girls actions Brittany turned and did her best to blend into the middle of her team.

It wasn't surprising that even with a blind member on their rotation that Santana's teamed kicked their butts. They lost four games in total. Brittany, although used to her role as an underachiever, was still slightly competitive. Usually she was able to blend into mediocre players skill level during Phys Ed and could win at least a few games or rounds at whatever sport they were playing, but her team was horrible. Half of them were scared of the ball, even when the other team wasn't spiking it at their heads, which admittedly wasn't often. The other half seemed too lazy to try when they obviously knew the outcome.

It frustrated her more than it should. Brittany tried to shrug her irritation off as just some remnants of her disappointment in not being able to help the boy earlier. She was able to play almost as horribly as the rest of her team, but caught herself many times trying to dive for the ball and had to force herself to remain still. It did seem that when ever Jes was up front the ball was spiked in Brittany's direction more often than not and by the end of the four sets she had multiple red spots along her arms and legs where the ball had made contact.

Coach Beiste kept her after class and Brittany was thankful that she was given an excuse to stay behind. She didn't keep her long, only so she could hand Brittany a coupon to some restaurant, saying it was a prize for setting a new record within the school. But Brittany was long enough in her gratefulness that by the time she reached the locker room it was already empty.

She hummed to herself as she changed back into her regular clothes and the tune began to relax her as only music could. She found herself swaying and soon broke out into an impromptu dance off. It only lasted a few seconds before Brittany burst into laughter at her own goofiness. Shaking her head at herself she grabbed her bag and exited the room to make her way home.

Hopefully tomorrow would prove better than today.


	7. Chapter 7

_So, here it is. Like I said, this chapter kicked my butt. I wasn't aware at how difficult is was going to be until I got into it. Since I knew it was going to take me a fairly long time - Two Weeks, wow I'm sorry - I believe I have answered the majority of reviewers through PM. If I haven't then thank you so much for reviewing and all those that decided to follow and favorite are awesome. :)_

_Also on a slightly related note, I have had a few readers PM me saying they would rather not review due to maybe being called out in my notes. I hadn't realized this may have been a problem for some and I am debating not doing it anymore. I know a few other writers who do the same and have spoken to them about it, but ultimately I want to do what is best for my readers. Please let me know how/what you feel on this subject so I can make my decision by the next post hopefully._

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She nearly ran head first into Quinn on her way out of the girls locker room, but caught herself just in time. Well actually Quinn's hands on her shoulders had caught her.

"Outta my way please." she demanded when the blonde remained in her way.

"What's up with you today?"

"Nothing," Quinn continued to look skeptically at her. She knew she wasn't going to drop it by the way the right side of her lips tensed like they had every time Quinn got it in her mind to solve some grand mystery. Even if that mystery happened to be as dull as where her perfume was disappearing to when they were in freshman year. Needless to say Santana was sneaky enough to have never been caught. Quinn had been unbelievably gullible back then and had agreed with her assessment that her perfume was probably just evaporating away. It was liquid wasn't it? But lately Quinn had the habit of hiding her perfume whenever Santana came around, which only led her to believe Quinn had either tested her theory and realized that in a closed container evaporation wasn't going to be a problem or she had caught her in the act of spritzing the expensive fragrance into a container at one of their sleep overs.

"Really S, whats up?" she asked. Calm and polite, yeah that's not going to work.

"Practice is starting," Santana snapped pushing past Quinn.

"What the hell has your spankies in a knot?" Quinn's voice hardened. Uh oh, now stubborn Quinn was coming out to play. "I saw the new girl leaving the locker room just before you. Did she do or say something?"

Besides breaking out into a way too adorable dance, nope. Like seriously, the new girl was a complete mystery. One minute she was stumbling over her words and the next she was being defiant and indifferent, only to break out into fits of laughter and body spasms that were way to coordinated to be untrained when in private. What was she playing at?

"I don't know what you're talking about." Santana continued down the empty hall and walked through the exit leading to the football field. "I didn't notice anyone in there."

"Seriously? It's not like there are many places to hide in there." Santana chose to ignore Quinn's comment, mainly because she had been the one occupying the only hiding place in the change room. And cramming into the very dirty, cramped space in between the row of lockers and wall leading to the showers was not something she was eager to divulge. "Well something is up with you. You've been acting really weird today. I'm usually immune to your mood swings but you've been all over the map."

"Can we fucking drop it?" Santana finally responded, raising her voice as they came to the field. The rest of the Cheerios were already gathered and were talking in groups. Some loudly and others, namely Jes' huddle, in hushed tones. "I'm perfectly fine, nothing's wrong with me. Maybe you are just exceptionally emotional. We all know how sappy and touchy you get when you're on your you-know-what."

"Fuck you, _Satan_. I'm not on my period and I'm not imagining things. You are definitely more of a bitch right now than you normally would be."

"She's probably just mad at the new girl," Marcy spoke up.

"Who asked for your two cents Skunkhead?" Santana was really starting to get worked up. Why was everyone so worried about her attitude. It wasn't as if she never bitched or snarled at anyone before. She was a hardcore bitch, wasn't a little harshness to be expected?

"No, I agree with Q and Marcy," Jes spoke up. "After what you did for that slut this morning it was a total dick move to do that to you in gym. You are completely justified at being pissed." By the nods of every girl on the squad the little mishap in the gym had spread already. Great.

"I'm not pissed. At least not because of some stupid high school record being taken away." Santana paused, trying to get her emotions in check, the outer edges of her vision began to blur. Her eyes closed briefly before opening but her vision remained compromised. God, why couldn't they just drop it. You'd think they would have learned. "If I'm pissed, it's because _some_ people don't know when to back the fuck off."

"Exactly," Jes responded. "Which is why I'm making it my personal goal to crush that whore. Teach her who really runs McKinley; she can't just waltz in and think she can take over."

"I was talking about you bitches getting involved in shit that has nothing to do with you." She looked to Jes and her group of followers. They all averted their gaze, all except Jes. "I personally don't have any problems with the new girl."

"Are you serious? She's a complete bitch."

"Yeah, I'm only in like one class with her but she's totally stuck up." Carmen, one of the other seniors, spoke up agreeing with Jes. It would figure that Jes had most of the seniors wrapped around her finger. As of yet the seniors hadn't started anything this year, but Santana was just waiting for the bomb to drop. It'd happened each year since she had taken over as captain. Brittany had been right to assume she was a senior the day before. Captains were typically in their last year and although Santana enjoyed what the position brought her and was proud of her success at the top, it was slightly exhausting having to keep an eye on the older girls. Santana knew it was just their way of testing her, like all the trophies littering each of their bedrooms wasn't enough for them. They wanted more. Greedy bastards.

Santana let out a sarcastic laugh. "Bitch _please_, take a look around you." She motioned to the other girls surrounding them. "We are the _top_ bitches at this school, and I'd like you to name me one girl on this squad who hasn't been called stuck up, or worse."

Most of the other girls joined in with Santana's laughter. Inside she was still fuming, and all she wanted to do was slap the scowl off of Jes' face. But she knew violence would only cause a larger rift between her and the other seniors. The summer had somehow turned Jes into the leader of the older girls and no matter how successful they'd become thanks to Santana she knew she couldn't afford to lose the support of all the seniors. Funny how a few months could change alliances. Back when the girls in front of her were juniors they had been more than happy to back her up against Christine and her lackeys. Now that those others had graduated Jes must have gotten power hungry.

Had she not given them all they needed? Success, trophies, championships, popularity, status, not to mention the news and magazine covers that came with it, she'd given them everything they had. The team had been run into the ground before she had whipped it into shape. The girls before her could remember the feeling of being nobodies, the feeling of defeat at each of their cheer meets. Jes had been on the losing squad for a full year before Santana had become a freshman. One loss was enough to cause Santana to cringe, how had any of them put up with it for any longer was a mystery to her. She'd taken over and they became renowned as the worst underdog team to ever win a state championship. No one had thought she could take the team to Nationals and even less had believed it was possible to win. But she had done it, of course she had Quinn by her side the whole time and back then the whole team, even the girls three years her senior had followed her willingly. They were drunk on that winning feeling.

The next year the new seniors had spoken up telling Santana that although she had 'done a bang up job' it was time to give the reins back to the more deserving.

It was the first, and last, time Santana had ever backed down.

Two days before their first competition they all knew they would lose. Christine, the self proclaimed deserved, had no clue what the judges were looking for and Santana had had it on good authority that she'd never even picked up the cheerleaders rulebook, let alone read or memorized it as Santana had.

Two days before their first competition Santana was given her position back, Christine practically begging her to take it. Turns out the girl had some brain cells left under the copious layers of weaves in her hair. Christine had decided she would rather be known as a senior on a team who had won two national championships, even under the guidance of a sophomore, than to be known as the girl who single handedly ruined a champion team.

Two days she had to reorganized, delegating to Quinn and Jes what needed to be done. Two days of non-stop exhaustion, but no one had the nerve to even question their all day practices. After booting her out as captain, no one was stupid enough to now question her authority.

And they had won. She'd taken them to nationals again that year, and returned with another huge ass trophy for Coach Sylvester's case, and a cheque that helped maintain not only the school grounds but other clubs at McKinley as well.

"Point is, bitch needs to learn her place." It was Jes again, and the laughter died with her venomous tone. "She isn't one of us."

"Well maybe we should make her one of us." Quinn spoke up behind her. They'd briefly spoken about it in the gym earlier, before the suicide incident. "She definitely has moves if what she did in the gym indicates anything and she is certainly athletic."

It wasn't like Santana would have been opposed to the idea completely. She knew at this point as well as Quinn did that that particular subject was not able to be brought up by Santana anymore. Cheer politics were insane. With Jes pointing the blame at Brittany and effectively turning the other seniors against her, there was no way Santana could stick up for her while maintaining her status within the team. Quinn however could make the suggestion, plant the seed and revisit the topic at a later date, one where anger wasn't the predominant emotion. Plus new talent was always welcome and needed.

"She's not on the team yet," Jes corrected, turning her glare to Quinn, "and to let her get away with dissing any of us is cause enough for us to act. She can't get away with it."

"What are you referring to?" Santana asked, smirking at Jes and ignoring Quinn's statement. She knew how to play this game, better than anyone. Who did Jes think she'd learned it from? "Are you talking about her breaking my record, or are you just upset that your boyfriend's itty-bitty penis size is now public knowledge?"

Jes immediately turned red and a few of the younger girls snickered, not having heard that piece of gossip yet.

"That's public knowledge because of you." Jes stated trying to ignore the laughter around her.

"Exactly, so if you have a problem with that then you can take it up with me." Santana knew it was a low move but she wasn't about to let this argument escalate or continue much longer. "Besides if he wasn't ogling another girl's tits at the time I may have refrained. You're my friend Jes and I just lost it, okay? I didn't like the fact that he was blatantly eye cheating on you." Not particularly even close to the truth, but by the sympathetic stares of the other seniors she knew she had averted a potential divide in the team. What better way to bring them back on her side of the line than to cause them to question Jes' authority.

"You know that we aren't exclusive." There was no bite in Jes' words this time, knowing that the mood had changed within the squad.

"Yeah, well if you don't keep him on a tighter leash this year, than he will become exclusive, just not with you." Santana reached out and grabbed the other girls hand, forcing her thumb to rub reassuring circles over her knuckles instead of digging into the sensitive spots between the tendons like it wanted to. "You're leaving after this year and he's eventually going to realize that and set his sights on another girl who won't mind his failing bedroom skills so much. He's the type of guy that _needs_ validation and he will start looking this year Jes. I was just trying to help you out." Santana could see how uncomfortable the discussion was making Jes. Having everyone know about her bad sex life was not something Jes seemed to enjoy.

"Okay whatever, I was being a bitch. I get it."

Santana dropped Jes' hand and called the guys over from where they were grouped, far away from the drama the girls in the squad were partaking in. At least they were smart enough to know their places and never seemed to question her. Although they just appeared to be along for the ride, being on the cheer squad they were winners, unlike the football team.

The rest of the practice, although going slightly late due to the interruption at the beginning, went quite smoothly. No more interruptions occurred and there were only a few slip ups from a couple of the younger Cheerios. Santana knew she would have to get them some one on one time soon. Competitions were starting in a few weeks and she needed some of their mistakes to be less noticeable.

As all the others were getting into their cars to leave Quinn gave her a look, telling her to stay behind.

"So are you going to tell me what's really got you in such a mood?"

Yeah, definitely not going to drop it.

"Look Q, I'm _exhausted_ and I would just like to go home and veg on the couch."

"You can do that, _after_ you tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help." And queue the soft, caring smile. Jeeze how anyone could say no to that look was beyond her. Well actually no one ever had been able to go against Quinn with that look. She was a spoiled brat for a reason.

"If you want to help, maybe stop the losers at this school from acting up. I don't think I can take much more of it."

"I thought you said what the new girl did didn't bother you."

"Brittany? God, no. I meant that nobody in the gym."

"I'm so sorry about that." Quinn said apologetically. "It was completely my fa-" She paused. "Wait, did you just say Brittany?"

"Uh, yeah." Santana mentally scolded herself. "That is her name, isn't it? Maybe it's Brandi, or Brenda, or Backster. Starts with a 'b' that's all I know." There, disaster perfectly avoided.

"Backster, really S?" Quinn eyed her as if she could see right through her. And to her credit ninety percent of the time she could. "You know her name is Brittany. This just proves something is up between you and her. I knew it."

"You _know_ nothing." Santana huffed. "Making a big deal out of it. I have a few classes with the chick and she seems okay. Athletic obviously and girls got an alright look. I was thinking about recruiting her maybe if she had any game, but obviously that's on hold now. After what that kid did in the gym and how Jes overreacted to it, blaming Brittany, there's no way that's gonna pan out any time soon."

Quinn flinched. "Right, again I'm really sorry. I didn't notice anyone had been paying attention. I didn't think."

"I know you didn't mean it." Santana reassured her. "You didn't help the situation, but it wasn't your fault. The dude knew what he was doing. Have I not made it clear by now where everyone in this school stands?"

"New year, new rules. You know that better than anyone S. Summer vacation makes people brave, makes them want to break out of their current roles."

They looked up when they noticed movement coming out of the side door of the school. It was Puck. Following him was the kid from the gym. His hair was covering his face as he looked to the sidewalk. Puck looked up and met Santana's eyes. He sent her a reassuring smile before addressing the boy behind him. They both picked up their pace and disappeared into Puck's green jeep. Squealing tires and the smell of burnt rubber announced their departure.

"Yeah, I know."

The next day Santana made sure she was on top of her game. She couldn't afford to be unaware of anything after what had happened yesterday. Having one student speak up to her was one thing, easy enough to fix, but if more started to think they could get away with anything there might be a slight uprising on her hands.

It wasn't as if she was responsible for most of the stuff thrown at the other students. Most of the shit came from the football players. She didn't particularly like getting her hands dirty. She was more of a barker, not a biter. But the squad liked their status, and if that was even slightly questioned they would blame their captain. Besides she only really had to put up with the politics for one more year. Next year she would be a senior and no one in her year would question that she belonged as captain.

On her way to Math she caught sight of Puck and his friends. They were laughing and making far too much noise than was warranted. She'd barely gotten any sleep the night before and her head was pounding because of it. Please, please no one start shit today. It's for your own good. On her way passed she noticed a head of shaggy brown hair being shoved back and forth between a few of the members. She sighed, knowing it was her doing that caused it. But in the long run it was for his benefit. He chose to speak up, this is what he had to go through because of it.

She reached her locker and pulled out her text then shoved all but her binder into the space before checking her reflection in the mirror. Perfectly put together as usual. She flicked her aviators down to cover her eyes, the fluorescent lights were making her headache worse, and turned to head to class.

As she closed her locker she took one more look at the unfortunate boy in the midst of the jocks. Her eyes were drawn to a girl passing by the group. Brittany was wearing jeans and a light purple top that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was up today in a messy pony tail, just like it was the first day they met. Brittany eyed Puck briefly before looking to the brown haired boy, she then quickly averted her eyes. Santana wasn't sure if Brittany approved of the jocks disciplinary actions or not but wasn't surprised that she didn't speak up.

The girl obviously had a thing for Puck. Not that that wasn't a surprise or anything. Puck had gotten with most of the girls at McKinley by this stage, adding the new girl to his list wasn't a far stretch of the imagination. And the way Puck's eyes traveled the length of Brittany when her back was turned from him, Santana knew that was exactly what was on his mind.

It probably wouldn't take much charming from him, this was the second time she had caught the blonde looking at him. The first time was yesterday at lunch. Santana had been heading to grab her money for the cafeteria when she noticed Brittany was at her locker. Santana had waited, leaning up against the wall a little ways down the hall, not wanting to get the other girls attention. Santana realized the reactions she had around the other girl weren't helping her at the moment. Sticking up for her in Spanish may have set her back slightly with the seniors. Santana had looked on unamused as Rachel had run past covered in sticky slushy, and had seen Brittany's uncaring attitude towards the girl's embarrassment. But when Brittany had laid eyes on Puck the girl couldn't stop staring. Like it was slightly pathetic, and completely obvious. Puck may have to clean up his act a little to get her but playing the part was no problem for the Puckasaurus. Ugh, even thinking that name gave Santana the chills.

Santana was just thankful that the girl got her shit under control. She barely got a glance in at Puck and she had continued on as if she wasn't the least bit interested. Nothing was more sickening than seeing a girl pining over a guy, especially if that guy was Puck. But Puck had seen Brittany's reaction just as Santana had the day before. Playing nonchalant or hard to get wasn't going to stop him now.

As Brittany approached her locker she looked up to meet Santana's eyes. Those fucking eyes. They were so bright and inimitable. Santana had always been slightly partial to blue eyes but Brittany's put all others to shame. Santana suddenly regretted wearing her aviators, they masked Brittany's true eye color.

Brittany's bored look that she seemed to always be wearing was replaced by a slight frown when she noticed Santana. Santana opened her mouth to say something, anything really, but snapped her mouth shut once more when Brittany quickly opened her locker and hid herself behind the door. Well that was rude.

But if the girl wanted to ignore her than that was just fine with her. Avoiding the blonde was probably for the best anyway considering the vicarious position she was in with the other girls on the squad.

She'd risked too much already over the new girl.

She turned away from Brittany's direction and headed down the hall to Math. She barely noticed when three other Cheerios fell in behind her, grand entrances were kind of their thing. They all headed straight for their seats. Santana didn't even bother to look around the class at the other students. None of them were of much importance to her anyway. Besides, she already knew most eyes followed her. And why wouldn't they? She was at the top and they were at the bottom. They all either wanted to be her or wanted to get with her.

Status was everything at McKinley.

She sat down and tuned out the buzz of conversation around her. She didn't even try to partake in whatever immature gossip the rest of her squad were discussing. She had caught a few words in the beginning but upon realizing their up-to-date gossip was something she had been privy to for weeks she knew her thoughts would be of more use elsewhere.

A few minutes before the bell rang Santana's attention shifted from the window to the blonde head of hair entering the room. She was now thankful she hadn't taken her sunglasses off, it allowed her to watch Brittany while pretending to be engrossed in her squads conversation.

She watched as Brittany took her seat directly behind JBI. She watched as JBI's eyes followed her and how he turned in his seat to face her as she passed him. The distance and drone of multiple conversations made it impossible to hear them, but JBI had obviously brought out his 'A' game speech if the length was anything to go by. She knew he was asking the blonde out because that was the only reason he ever spoke to girls, unless he had a tape recorder in hand, chasing a big scoop. He spoke for several long moments, Brittany staring blankly at him the whole time.

JBI began to fidget more than was normal for him as Brittany failed to react to anything he was saying, but he still carried on with his obviously prepared, and probably rehearsed several dozen times, speech. Santana, herself would have shut the kid up before the second word had reached his lips, knowing nothing of interest ever came out of them. But Brittany allowed him to rant until he closed his mouth and just stared at her expectantly. Santana saw something on his face that she'd never seen before, hope. Not one girl had actually let him finish talking before, and that in itself caused even Santana to wonder at Brittany's answer.

Would she say yes? As difficult as it was to imagine any girl accepting JBI's advances, Santana didn't know Brittany very well. She felt a pang in her gut at the thought of the girl, obviously way out of his league accepting him. She could do way better than to stoop to JBI's level.

Brittany blinked a few times, still wearing her blank expression. Then, after a long, very long, awkward time Brittany slowly shook her head back and forth. No.

JBI's bright eyes, dulled and he quickly turned around to face the front. His head hung low over his desk and Santana actually felt sorry for the guy. Never had she thought that would happen. Feeling sorry for someone like JBI, who never cared about others feelings, was not a response Santana had been expecting. But then again, she had never seen him look so affected at a rejection before.

Why had Brittany allowed him to get his hopes up? Did she mean to do it or was that just a mistake?

Santana focused her eyes back on the blonde. She was staring bored, at the whiteboard at the front of the room, flicking a pencil rapidly between her fingers. She was not at all affected in the least at the crushed boy in front of her.

Maybe her squad had been right after all. Maybe Santana had been blinded by blue eyes. The girl certainly was acting all of the bitch her squad had painted her as.

Mr. Bates finally entered the room only slightly late and started their lesson. Assignments from the day before were handed to the front and he collected them quickly before throwing the pile of papers on his desk unceremoniously. He started in on the next section in their text and wrote a couple of equations on the board for them to work through.

Santana, although pretty good at math, had a little trouble figuring out how to group and factor the first equation. She couldn't learn in class very easily. She usually ended up going home and reading the text over after school. Mr. Bates wasn't the best at explaining, he was more of a 'here's an equation and here's the answer' kind of teacher.

Finally, when she thought she had gotten as close to the answer as she was going to she started on the next one. She was having even less luck with that one. She gave up five minutes into staring at the letters and numbers and figured she could always jot down the answer and when she relearned the section at home that night she could retry the equation. She tried the next three equations and came no closer to an answer. She knew she should have just looked ahead in the book and learned the section before coming to class today. She had thought about it after finishing her assigned homework, but had been too exhausted with the day in general to force her brain to focus once more. She'd gone to bed early in hopes of sleeping off her frustration, but was only able to toss and turn for hours. She'd woken up after only a few hours sleep with a headache, knowing the day was only going to get worse.

Giving up completely, Santana no longer had a reason to keep her eyes from wandering the room. Immediately they found Brittany, who seemed to have not moved an inch. She was still twirling the pink mechanical pencil between her fingers and staring at the equations on the board.

Most students were still working on the equations and others were doodling in their scribblers. She glanced to the girls surrounding her and noticed they hadn't gotten much further than herself. When she turned to look over her shoulder at Gabby the girl looked up from her work. Gabby had light auburn hair that was shorter than most of the rest of the squads. Most girls grew their hair out so that it all could be tucked into the mandatory high ponytail. Gabby, however, decided that she didn't mind the few clips and pins needed to keep the shorter layers of hair back from her face when in her Cheerios uniform. Out of school the girl always wore her hair down, framing her face and Santana had to admit that the look suited the girl.

Gabby tried to catch Santana's eye, but Santana still wore her Aviators, so she gestured to her work assuming that was what Santana wanted. Santana looked down and noticed that at least Gabby was getting somewhere with the equations but shook her head in the negative. She'd figure it out later when her head wasn't pounding so hard. She did however give Gabby a tight lipped smile in thanks, which she returned with a wink. Right, and the girl was a major flirt.

Santana looked once more to her own paper but decided against a second try. Opting to nurse her head as much as possible in hopes the affliction would pass.

She caught herself again staring at the enigma that was the new girl. She, for the most part, stared at something at the front of the class, but occasionally looked to the pages before her on the desk, scrutinizing. Santana wondered if she had even attempted them or if Brittany had given up as Santana herself had.

Mr. Bates looked up from the papers he was sorting through, seeing who failed to turn in the assignment, and glared around the room. He glanced at her and Santana was sure that he wanted to tell her to remove her glasses. If it was anyone besides her, she was sure he would have. But as it was his annoyance just seemed to grow at Santana's blatant disrespect that he wasn't in the mood to fight. His eyes shifted away from her and Santana congratulated herself on having sway even over the teachers in the school.

His eyes quickly scanned the students and the numbers of them that weren't working on the equations didn't seem to bother him. What did bother him was the fact that Brittany was one of them. Santana knew this because when his eyes landed on her his chest puffed out, his eyes narrowed and most importantly, he spoke up.

"Ms. Pierce," Brittany's head was resting on her upturned palm but her spine stiffened. Her eyes focused on Mr. Bates' form still sitting behind his desk.

"Yeah?" She asked quietly.

"Are you having trouble with the assigned equations?" He questioned with a smirk. That asshole. Santana just realized why the equations had seemed so difficult to her. Maybe it wasn't that she had a headache and couldn't focus because of it. The man had purposefully chosen a set of hard equations to stump them. Well to stump one in particular.

Santana felt her skin flush with anger. A part of her was upset because she hadn't felt particularly good that morning and having a teacher start it off with a joke that caused her discomfort to increase was bad enough in her books. But she was also aware that her anger was in part because he had done it because he was trying to make a fool out of Brittany. He was trying to make her look stupid. What kind of teacher was that? Well to be fair, Brittany had made quite the spectacle out of him the day before. Santana knew that her little act had caused Mr. Bates problems. It didn't take long for the practical jokes to start. Sometimes McKinley's students could be quite immature.

She had heard that Mr. Bates had returned from lunch with a box on his desk. Inside had been a blonde wig and a 'Math for Dummies' book at the bottom and a note reading 'wear wig for increased intelligence.' Implying that Mr. Bates was less intelligent than a blonde was a little juvenile, especially since blonde jokes were so overdone.

But that was no excuse to force the attention back on Brittany. She'd only done what he had asked her to do. Yes, she did it with a little too much delight, and even Santana had chuckled at the look on his face when she skipped back to her seat, paying even less attention to him than she had been earlier. But just because Brittany seemed to enjoy making him look the fool was no excuse to do the same to her. He was the adult after all, weren't they supposed to take the higher road?

Santana looked from the balding man's almighty smiling face to Brittany's familiar blank one. She was half expecting Brittany to scowl and speak up against him. If she were to find herself in Brittany's shoes, she would have wiped the smirk off the man's face long ago. But Brittany's expression didn't change. The girl seriously always looked bored as if nothing could surprise her. It was slightly unnerving how she continued throughout the day unaffected by everything. Uncaring, just as she had been the day before in this same class, how she had been towards the shaggy haired boy this morning in the hall and how she had been towards JBI just minutes before. But Santana couldn't find it in her to call Brittany anything close to what Jes and her clones had at practice the day before, even if they might be correct in their assumptions.

She'd seen Brittany smile on Sunday, had seen how her eyes lit up when she had.

She'd seen a shy side of her yesterday after Spanish when Brittany had thanked her for intervening on her behalf.

She'd seen a silly side in her after Gym in the locker room yesterday. She'd heard her laughter.

There was no way the girl was just what everyone seemed to assume. There had to be more.

Santana was seconds away from speaking up, tired of waiting for a reaction from the other girl. Anything would have been preferable to the nothingness that permeated the room.

"No." Santana's eyes were drawn back to Brittany. She speaks.

"Excuse me?" Mr. Bates seemed just as stunned as everyone else in the class.

"I said, no." Brittany nonchalantly explained, although it explained nothing.

"I heard," his jaw tightened and he let a cluck escape the side of his mouth before continuing. "Care to elaborate." He smiled again. "That means to explain further, in more detail, by the way."

So close. Santana was so close to actually calming her anger, distracted by the mysterious nature of the blonde, before those words left his mouth. Her fists clenched and her pencil actually broke in half at the force.

'Do something' Santana thought, looking towards Brittany. 'Do something before I do.'

"About what?" Still she remained calm and her voice continued in its soft tone. Why wasn't she angry? "You want me to go into more detail on why the work is not too difficult?"

The entire class broke out into snickering, a few students actually outright laughing. Santana found herself smiling at the girls response. It was kind of cute.

Mr. Bates mouth sputtered a few times before he literally shook himself out of his stupor. His face turned scarlet as he pushed himself up from his seat.

"No, I want to know why, if the work is not too hard, you aren't working on the equations." His voice rose and Santana noticed it was as close to a teacher yelling as she had ever heard, minus Coach Sylvester of course.

"Are there more equations to work on?" Brittany finally lifted her head from her palm.

Mr. Bates gestured to the five equations on the board. "Can you not see them?"

"Oh," she rested her chin back on her palm and looked the equations over once more. "I thought you meant there were others." When Mr. Bates didn't respond she continued. "I've already solved those ones."

"You've already solved them?" Even Santana could hear the disbelief in his tone.

"Would you like me to write the answers on the board again?"

Santana watched as his eyes darted from Brittany to the board. He was obviously trying to weigh his options. If he agreed and Brittany got the answers wrong, then he would have won whatever game he was playing at. But if she got them right, he would look even more the dunce than he already was.

She smiled, and Santana could have sworn it was a genuine one, although a shyer version than the last she had seen from her.

"I don't mind."

That's all it took for Mr. Bates to realize he wasn't about to chance the results. "No thank you." The harshness in his tone seemed, once again, to not affect the other girl, although her smile did fade back into her natural blank features.

As Mr. Bates turned to write the answers on the board everyone except Santana began to frantically write them down, not having had the time to the day before to do so. She kept her eyes on Brittany and watched as with every new answer written on the board, Brittany put a small check mark beside each of her own written answers.

Great, not only was she a complete mystery, she was also a complete Math whiz.

By the time the bell rang, ending the class, Santana was already packed up and heading for the door. All she wanted was to get to Spanish and be able to close her eyes for an hour and not have to think or pay attention to anything.

Spanish was her easiest subject, for obvious reasons. She had an understanding with Mr. Schuester; he allowed her to pretty much zone out or sleep through the hour required of her to be there and she would stop calling him out on his mistakes in front of the other students. It was a win win situation.

She was the first to enter the class and gave a small head jerk in Mr. Schue's direction as she passed him. She sat in her usual spot and leaned her forehead against window and closed her eyes. The coolness of the window calmed her and lessened the ache in her head.

She must have been more exhausted than she had imagined because she fell asleep pretty quickly, even with the throbbing still going on in her skull. When she woke up it was to a full room of students and Mr. Schuester speaking a few words of Spanish using horrible pronunciation and grammar.

She soon noticed what had caused her to awaken; a tapping noise coming from directly behind her. She tried to ignore it and closed her eyes hoping to fall asleep for the twenty remaining minutes of class but the tapping sound was almost impossible to ignore. It wasn't a steady tapping, that at least she might have been able to sleep through, but was sporadic. The beat quickened and then slowed almost randomly and the more she tried to push it from her mind the more her mind centered in on it. Having had enough, Santana spun around in her seat rapidly.

"Would you mind not doing that, it's fucking _annoying_ _as hell_." Her voice trailed off at the end as her eyes came to focus on Brittany's blue ones, wide in confusion. It was one of the rare times her blank look was taken over by something else and Santana found herself automatically memorizing it. Santana had forgotten Brittany now sat behind her.

"S-sorry." She kept staring, mouth agape, but must have noticed the pen she was holding was still taping away on her desk because she immediately slammed it down on top of her note book, silencing it. "Sorry," she repeated once more, vacant expression returning.

Santana didn't trust her voice staring into her eyes and instead simply turned back around, facing the front. She glanced around her and noticed Josh and his buddy were in the same seats as yesterday. Although they were turned and watched the interaction with amused looks they didn't speak up about it. Finally, they must have learned a little common sense.

Santana readjusted her sunglasses, them having gone askew sometime during her nap and leaned against the window once more.

She awoke next to someone tapping her forearm. She internally groaned and was debating the best way to break the unknown persons hand but somehow refrained. Maybe if she pretended she was still asleep they would leave her alone until the end of class.

She heard a zipper and movement from beside her before the finger once again tapped on her forearm that was resting on the desktop. Santana remained motionless, thinking they would leave any minute now, but was wrong. Instead of the tapping finger, this time a warm hand took its place. It squeezed the flesh of her arm and shocks shot up her arm to her shoulder and down her spine. She almost gasped at the sensation and only barely was able to tamp her reaction down. That was weird.

The hand glided up her forearm, over the crook in her elbow and Santana's abdomen clenched, twitching, as that was the only reaction she allowed her body to make. Any other movement would have alerted her disruptor of her current state of wakefulness. The hand continued until it reached her shoulder and gently shook her.

"Wake up," a voice whispered, breath tickling the hairs on the side of her neck.

Santana jumped and when her head turned to face the formerly unknown person she was met once more with shining blue eyes. They were inches away from her own. How had she gotten that close without her knowing? Oh yeah, her eyes were closed and she was pretending to sleep. That and the sensation her hand was giving her was quite a distraction.

Again Santana couldn't speak, or she didn't trust herself.

Brittany slowly stood from her crouched position and placed a bottle of water on Santana's desk. Santana pushed her Aviators on top of her head thinking she was seeing things, and who was she kidding, so that she could see Brittany's eyes correctly for the first time all day.

She looked from the bottle of water to Brittany, brow furrowed. Brittany bit the inside of her cheek and her breathtaking eyes flashed briefly. She motioned to the spot beside the water and for the first time Santana realized not only that there was a few pills on her desktop but that the two of them were the only ones in the room. Had she really slept through the bell?

Santana picked up the pills and examined them. Advil. She looked back up into Brittany's eyes and gave a small smile, one she didn't use often.

"What are these for?"

Brittany tilted her head to the side and simply stared at her for a few moments. She eventually lifted her arm and placed her hand on her head, where her own sunglasses would rest if she had any. She nodded her head and glanced at Santana's Aviators.

Santana couldn't help but smile wider.

"People don't typically wear sunglasses inside unless something is bothering their eyes." Her statement was simple and her tone was the same as it had been in addressing Mr. Bates but Santana couldn't help but be gladdened that Brittany was speaking to her. After the blatant avoidance at their lockers that morning, she didn't think Brittany would want to talk to her.

"What do you mean?" Santana teased. "I look smokin' in these. Why wouldn't I wear them all the time." she flipped the glasses back over her eyes and struck a pose, smirking the whole time.

This time when Brittany's eyes brightened she actually let herself smile. Santana struck another, more ridiculous, pose and Brittany actually let a small giggle escape her lips.

Santana lifted her Aviators from her eyes and stared at Brittany, smiling wider than she could remember doing in a long time.

Suddenly Brittany's whole countenance changed. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, silencing her laughter, and she narrowed her eyes in Santana's direction.

"I have to go." She turned and was halfway to the door before Santana emerged from her confused state.

"Thank you." Santana blurted loudly. Brittany paused and turned to look over her shoulder at her. "For the Advil, thank you. I've had a _killer_ headache all morning and apparently you were the only one to notice." Santana's voice turned soft as she continued to speak. "So, just thank you."

Brittany looked as if she wanted to say something and she even turned her body halfway back in Santana's direction. She looked torn between some action and looked to the empty desks in front of her. She looked back up to Santana with the same emptiness she wore everywhere and nodded her head before walking out the door, leaving Santana alone.

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_So like I said, Chapter definitely turned out more difficult to write than I thought. I got so used to writing for Brittany that when I switched to Santana I had to step back and figure out who Santana really was in this story. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Honest feedback is always appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

_I know it is so cliche around here to apologize for late story updating so I won't do that. You can all just assume I want to though :D_

_I want to obviously thank those that are still following along. Thanks for all the favorites and follows and such. Thank you also those who review. It really does make my day to read them.  
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_Special thanks to the guests and Pridemunkeyz who are reviewing but I can't personally send a message to thank you for it :)_

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Brittany slumped into her desk, waiting for the inevitable speech that was to come.

JBI was already turned towards her when she lifted her eyes from her scribbler. She tuned out the words but paid close attention to his facial features. His lips moved rapidly and in a few spots she was well aware of the spittle falling from his mouth on to her desk. His eyebrows rose during the times his mouth was working overtime, and his eyes seriously looked like they would pop out of his skull whenever he did that. And like every day this week his speech's end was noted by him biting the inside of his cheek. Only then did Brittany respond.

It wasn't as if she really meant to ignore him, it was just that she knew what the speech entailed having listened to three times already. She just had to get through this day, hopefully unscathed, and then she would have the entire weekend to recharge and reevaluate.

She internally grimaced as she shook her head in the negative, seeing JBI deflate once again. How was it that this kid could still dredge up the confidence to ask her every morning? She wasn't about to go on a date with him. Her answer wasn't going to change.

She couldn't help that her eyes rose at Santana's entrance. Usually Brittany arrived after the Cheerios had already found their places within the class. Today however, Brittany had managed to somehow beat them. In fact, she hadn't seen any cheerleaders in the halls on her way to class. Maybe they had an early morning meeting.

Her eyes followed the group as they took up their usual seats, the other girls surrounding Santana. It had been three days since they'd spoken, and even that wasn't much of a conversation. She was doing a pretty good job of avoiding the head cheerleader. Watching Colin being tormented in the halls during every break helped to set her resolve. She was unable to shake the feeling that she failed. And every second she stood by and watched, as Puck and the other jocks made his life more miserable, she failed again. She should have spoken up on Monday, now it felt too late. All she had managed to do was learn the kids name. That at least masked her disappointment she felt towards her own actions. She didn't have to refer to him as Shaggy in her head; using 'her' nickname for him only made her hate herself a little more each time.

Whenever Brittany felt she was letting her guard down around Santana she pictured Colin kneeling in front of the Latina, begging for mercy, or him being tossed between the jocks like a hot potato, or being ordered around like a slave by anyone in either a McKinley letterman jacket or cheer uniform. Picturing those things allowed her to keep her distance.

Tuesday was the hardest. Santana had obviously been in pain the entire morning and Brittany, for some reason, couldn't shake the feeling that she should help her. In Math, she forced her eyes in any direction that wasn't Santana's. But it was still difficult, she'd had a lot of spare time after finishing the equations, and she caught herself many times wanting to look to Santana, wanting to see if she was alright. It didn't make sense that, with how angry she was at the cheerleader, she still wanted to help her, that she wanted to take her pain away. She should have been glad. Maybe Santana deserved a little pain. After all, how many people in the school were in pain at this moment because of her? Probably more than a few.

When she had entered Spanish she was surprised to find Santana fast asleep and even more surprised that Mr. Schuester allowed it, he generally seemed to want the students to pay some attention in his class. He had called on a few students to answer some question or another if their attention wandered. But he was doing nothing to discourage Santana's behavior.

Brittany had thought she could get through the class and the rest of the day would be easy to avoid the cheerleader. She was planning an elaborate scheme in which she would be able to skip out of participating in Gym, something involving a very serious condition of Jenkins Fever or another serious sounding illness, but she hadn't even noticed in her nervous, stressed state her hand had been tapping out a beat to try and calm her.

Santana's anger towards her should have made Brittany mad, fueling her displeasure from the day before, but she had heard the crack in Santana's voice. She was in pain and Brittany had unconsciously made it worse by bringing her out of what ever peace she had found in sleep. She had stared at her hands the entire rest of the period making sure they didn't sneakily start anything else. She watched as Santana remained resting against the window, even after the bell rang and all other students vacated.

She'd only meant to wake her up so she wouldn't be late to whatever class she had next. She figured by giving up the Advil and water as a peace offering it would negate any guilty feelings she had of waking Santana again. But upon waking, she had looked confused and like Brittany had already found, confused was the one emotion that was synonymous with adorable on the Latina. And then the girl had to go and act all goofy, she couldn't help the giggle that escaped. Santana had been so totally precious in that moment.

She'd been distracted. She couldn't let that happen again. Santana may be the most gorgeous, sweet, and yes adorably precious girl Brittany had ever seen, but she was also the meanest, uncaring girl to those around her. She was a cheerleader in every sense of the word. If she hadn't have pretty much handed Colin over to his tormentors, and given them free reign in their harassment, Brittany might have been able to look past all the other minor infractions. But Santana was able to do that to someone she had known for who knows how many years.

She'd be able to do that to anyone, including Brittany.

And that thought had allowed Brittany the past two and a half days to evade any other moments involving the other girl.

Abruptly Brittany was brought out of her thoughts when the teacher came into the room. She wasn't sure what she had done to make the Zebra mad at her. The only thing she could think of was that he had sensed her reluctance to be singled out, or that he had taken her aloofness the first day to heart. She hadn't meant to be abrupt, Santana's presence had just thrown her off and her automated response was to internalize.

The second day she had tried to be polite, she'd even pulled out one of her best smiles in hopes of gaining the teachers favor once more. But for some reason the other students had taken her genuine words as sarcasm. Their laughter at Mr. Bates expense did absolutely nothing to help her.

Now Mr. Bates couldn't even glance her way without a scowl plastered to his face. For the time being it hadn't really affected her. He hadn't called on her in class since Tuesday and she was thankful. The other students, with exception of JBI, seemed to have all but forgotten she existed.

She needed to be better at following the rules.

Rules. Those were the only things that got her through the past couple of days. And those rules were the only things that were going to get her through today and subsequently all those that followed. They were what was saving her.

First there were the rules that all invisibles knew, the ones that never changed from school to school.

_Rule One: Never Anger a Cheerleader_. Brittany had failed to uphold that rule horrendously on multiple accounts. Jes and any Cheerios that followed her had no qualms with glaring daggers her way and even on a few occasions had brushed past her roughly, jarring her still healing shoulder a few times.

_Rule Two: Never Date a Jock_. Not a rule that she had to worry about. At the moment JBI seemed to be the only one interested, and her anger towards the others would definitely save her from any chance of breaking that rule.

And _Rule Three: No Showing Off._ It didn't matter if you were a child prodigy, if you wanted that invisible status you hid your talent away until you were in the safety of your own home. Brittany had also obviously had a few mishaps with this rule as well.

There were also a set of rules that Brittany alone had to follow. While other invisibles seemed to be able to get away with following the big three, Brittany needed more.

_Four: No Dating_. It wasn't enough for Brittany to just follow the No Jocks rule. She couldn't afford to develop ties to one place. It would make for an awkward situation when she inevitably had to leave.

_Five: No Clubs or Teams._ Joining something brought her into the company of the same select students on a regular basis. That allowed them to get to know her a little more each time and inevitably would end up with her either being ridiculed or making a friend, both of which she tried to avoid.

_Six: No Parties_. Parties were filled with teenagers with little inhibitions and music. Both of those things, Brittany knew, she wouldn't be able to resist. Inhibitions were what kept her grounded. Being wary of other students reactions was what had allowed her to survive being the new kid at so many different schools. And music, well it had the effect of relaxing her. That was definitely not something she wanted. She needed to remain on guard.

_Seven: Be Smart_. This rule applied to many things. All of which were centered around her not making a fool of herself. Act smart so others wouldn't see her as stupid. This included things like never, under any circumstance, answer a question given by a teacher unless the answer was written down right in front of her, and never say the first thing that came to her mind. Laughter typically followed if she failed to heed this rule.

Along with those six rules Brittany also had different rules that she made up with every school she went to. High schools were very similar but there were slight differences. These rules were basically just add-ons to the others. Ways in which she was able to uphold the main ones.

One she had already made was not to fidget in Spanish. Fidgeting had angered Santana on Tuesday and not angering the cheerleaders was Rule One. Santana had made it clear when speaking to Jes that Spanish was, for some reason, a time for her to get lost in her thoughts. With the exception of Tuesday, when she slept through the whole class, Santana had spent her time in that class staring out the window. Which was why when she entered Spanish class on Friday she wasn't surprised to see Santana staring out at the small expanse of grass outside the window, observing Rocky's tree.

She didn't look up when Brittany passed her and took her spot behind her. Brittany quickly, but as silently as possible, took her things from her bag and set them up before looking out the window as well.

She usually split her time in Spanish either listening to Mr. Schuester's lessons or joining the girl in front of her in observing the outdoors. Many times she had caught Rocky returning home, cheeks protruding to make his head twice it's normal size. Once she even witnessed as he agitatedly sprang from branch to branch when a sparrow landed a little too close to his food stash. Today he was nowhere to be seen.

"Brittany?"

Pulled from her thoughts of how cold Ohio got in the winter and how cute Rocky would look in a little sweater, Brittany looked to the front where Mr. Schuester had called her name. When he noticed her eyes were on him he pointed to the board.

"What do you think?"

Brittany looked to the board and read what was written.

**_'Christopher Columbus or Hernando Cortez.'_**

Not knowing what his question entailed or where any discussions, that may have been made, were left off, Brittany invoked one of her rules. She didn't speak and just shrugged her shoulders.

"Are you sure you don't have an opinion on the subject? You do get graded on participation in this class." He tried again to pull a response from her, but Brittany continued to stare silently at him until he gave up and asked another student across the room.

"Idiot."

Josh's buddy chuckled quietly at her expense and Josh himself smiled slyly. They didn't say anything else as they were probably still afraid of what Santana would do if they made the same mistake a second time. And for her part, Santana continued looking out the window as if she hadn't heard a thing. And for all Brittany knew, she hadn't.

Brittany focused on taking notes for the rest of the class. She'd followed her rules and still she'd been called stupid. It was most likely just due to Josh's prejudice against her from Monday, but still, if she wanted to be seen as smart she needed to actually know something on the subjects in her classes.

When the bell rang Mr. Schuester asked her to stay after to talk with him. He asked a bunch of generic questions on how she was fitting in at McKinley and if she was making friends and offered to find her a tutor if she was having any trouble. It had been a waste of her time. Brittany quickly explained that she was fine and not having any major problems in class and only after she promised to participate more in class did he let her leave.

Needless to say, she was late to her English class and she apologized to Mr. Jenkins automatically upon entering the room. When he asked for a tardy slip from her and she couldn't produce one, not knowing she was supposed to have obtained one from Mr. Schuester, she was told to report back to him for detention after school. Like actual detention.

Brittany had learned enough in the first week to know that arguing with the English teacher was going to get her no where. She nodded her acquiescence and continued on to her assigned desk beside Mercedes.

"Tough break." Mercedes gave Brittany a sympathetic look as she took her seat.

"Yeah," she replied and gave the other girl a small smile in thanks.

Trying not to get on an even worse side of the teacher, Brittany decided to diligently pay attention in class and take as many notes as she possibly could.

Five minutes in to the class the door opened and one of the Cheerios entered, right in the middle of one of Mr. Jenkins speeches. She smiled at the teacher and continued on to her seat. Brittany stared at the girl then turned her attention back to Mr. Jenkins. All he did was give the girl a stiff nod and continue with his interrupted speech. He never asked for a tardy slip, and Brittany doubted that the girl would even have one. And he didn't give her detention. So unfair.

"They aren't held to the same rules the rest of us are," Mercedes chimed. "They are above things like detention. And most of the teachers are terrified of their coach, Sue Sylvester."

"That's idiotic," Brittany turned her attention away from the cheerleader and teacher to look at Mercedes. "Just because they wear that uniform and have won a few stupid trophies doesn't give them a right to live above the law."

She had been kept late by another teacher but the cheerleader had most likely been late because her face was glued to her boyfriend or she'd been smoking in some secluded corner of the school. But it was Brittany who was being punished.

She held a slight hope that Mr. Jenkins would take the detention back, knowing how unjust he was being, but when she walked by his desk on her way out after class he reminded to meet back there after school.

She just wanted to grab her lunch and spend some relaxation time with her favorite squirrel. She almost made it to her locker without incidence, but for some reason the jocks seemed to have chosen a spot particularly close to her locker to hang out. As she passed and saw Colin carrying about five different binders, arms shaking with exertion, she became instantly more upset. It wasn't fair and Brittany wished she could do more than just wish Colin didn't have to stay a slave for very much longer. They would have to get bored eventually, or so she kept telling herself.

Brittany quickly retrieved her lunch from her locker and slammed the door shut only to be surprised that Puck had stealthily maneuvered his way beside her without her being aware of it. He was leaning up against a locker and was turned towards her. There was no mistaken that he wanted to get her attention.

Once her heart settled to a more steady beat, Brittany tried to step around the boy without further delay. Puck reached his arm straight out to stop her and she skidded to a halt before running into his forearm.

"Hey, what's up?" He smiled at her. "You're the new girl right? Did you need any help finding your way around?"

"I've been here a week." Brittany responded confused. "I think I know where my classes are, thanks."

She went to step around him once more but again his arm kept her rooted to her spot.

"How about around town? I can show you the good hang outs and where a pretty girl like you should stay away from." His smile turned, devilish is the only word Brittany could think to describe it. Was he seriously asking her out? He was a jock and she had shown no interest in him what-so-ever.

"I'm good," she said, shaking her head in the negative. But he still refused to move his body out of her way.

"Puck, you're in my way."

Brittany nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Santana's voice. She'd almost forgotten what it sounded like, being three days since she'd heard it up close. She whipped her head to look at the cheerleader standing next to them. She was alone but a few of her fellow squad members were conversing with the jocks across the hall. Santana lifted her left arm and flicked her wrist, shooing him back. He obeyed almost instantly and the Latina stepped in between them to open her locker.

Brittany stood frozen as she stared at Santana's profile. Eventually she found her brain catching up and quickly forced her legs to carry her around the cheerleader and down the hall. She didn't make it very many steps when she found herself being pulled back by another hand attached to her wrist.

She turned to see Puck wearing the same smirk from earlier before he opened his mouth to speak. "So, how about a rain check then? Believe me, you'll have a good time."

She was seriously not in the mood to politely deal with this guy. And she was pretty sure that angering Puck, a jock, was along the same lines as angering a cheerleader. Stupid Rules. Before Brittany had a chance to turn the guy down, again, the sound of snapping fingers drew both of their attentions. Brittany glanced past his shoulder as he turned slightly to see what the noise was about. Santana was observing them with a displeased look etched on her face.

"Let's go Puck." Her voice was commanding but was even. At least she wasn't about to blow up in anger. And as Puck immediately walked past Santana before turning and waiting for her, Brittany couldn't help but feel uneasy as her assumptions that something was going on between Santana and Puck were pretty much confirmed. He followed Santana like a puppy.

Brittany locked eyes with Santana briefly before turning and hurrying out of the building. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was more than one student watching her departure.

Her lunch wasn't as relaxing as she had hoped. There were more than the normal amount of kids running around the grass, playing some kind of game Brittany wasn't interested in and Rocky, probably scared, was either hiding in his tree or had made it far away from the rowdy teens already.

Her History class was spent trying to ignore the heated glares and scoffs of a senior cheerleader, who Brittany had only learned was named Carmen when the teacher had called on her to pay more attention to the lesson. It was something Brittany was getting used to. Besides Jes, Carmen had been the most willing of the cheerleaders to show Brittany that she was generally not liked. She had even tripped Brittany on her way to her desk the day before. Luckily Brittany's reflexes had kicked in and she had only swayed and had to hop a few times on one foot to catch her balance. Much less embarrassing than face planting.

But Gym was by far the worst class of the day. They had only skipped volleyball for one day so far that week, and that was to work out in the weight room. A welcome change that was apparently only afforded once a week so Brittany wasn't surprised when she walked into the Gym, after hurriedly changing, to find the nets already set up. She had a few extra bruises and floor burns to add to her list of injuries after the few sets they played. Jes was determined to give her another nosebleed. Truth be told, if it weren't for the pain and the embarrassment of having everyone's attention drawn to her, Brittany wouldn't have minded another ball to the face. At least she would get out of the torment of knowing the hit was coming and not being really able to stop it. Plus it gave her an out, she'd spent half of the period on Wednesday in the nurses office.

Brittany welcomed the times when she was rotated off. It gave her a chance to not only escape Jes' spikes but also to watch the guys teams play. She was slightly taken aback to find that Colin was on the jock's team and was actually pretty good. The jocks seemed to be getting along with him in this setting but Brittany assumed that was only due to the contribution Colin was making to their score.

It was kind of out of the norm as the jocks had only picked Colin for their team the last period and spent more time serving the ball to the back of his head than over the net. She had thought that was a one time deal that they would get tired of, apparently not. It was weird seeing them actually tolerating his presence. A few of the guys, including Puck, would push him out of the way or knock him down occasionally, trying to show off themselves, but for the most part they seemed to ignore his presence.

Not looking forward to her detention, Brittany dragged her feet after Gym and even volunteered to help Coach Bieste put the nets away. It didn't take nearly as long as she hoped so she found herself entering the changing room earlier than expected. It was still half packed with girls rushing from one locker to another, chatting with their friends and a few were wrapped in towels, either heading to the showers or coming from them.

Brittany went the slightly longer way to her locker, going around the middle wall of lockers, instead of straight as to avoid the Cheerios self proclaimed section. But as she whipped around the far corner, not particularly paying much attention, she ran right into someone.

The other girl squeaked and lost her footing. Brittany reached out and grabbed the girl's waist to steady her before she fell. It was only when her hands came in contact with warm smooth skin that Brittany realized the girl in her arms wasn't wearing a shirt. Well technically she was, it was just bunched around her neck with her arms trapped within it. It was a good thing Brittany did catch her; it would probably hurt to land on the hard tile without arms to break your fall.

When the girl realized she was no longer in danger of crashing to the floor she quickly yanked her arms through her top and pulled it down. It was then Brittany realized what the girl was wearing. White, black and red.

The girl's hair covered her face in shining midnight waves and once her arms were free she threw her head back and used both hands to run her fingers through it, taming it from her face.

"Thanks th-" she froze as her eyes came up to meet Brittany's.

Brittany wasn't sure how these kind of things could happen. If you were looking for someone you would never find them, but try to avoid one tiny girl and every corner you turned you'd run into her, sometimes literally.

Santana's eyes remained on her and Brittany found she wasn't able to move. Her dark eyes flicked down. God, was she looking at her lips? When the Latina's tongue poked out to wet her own lips, Brittany couldn't help but focus in on the movement. She'd never in her life wanted to kiss someone as much as she wanted to kiss Santana in that moment.

Warning bells went off in her head and Brittany could swear she even saw flashing red lights in her peripheral vision.

"Santana, are you coming?"

Nope, apparently the red lights weren't lights at all but Quinn and Skunkhead coming to see what was taking their captain so long. The red she'd seen being their uniforms. It was only then that Brittany realized how close her and Santana actually were, and that her hands were still held on either side of Santana's bare waist, her shirt having only been pulled down as far as Brittany's hands would allow. The fabric rubbed against her wrists and, being now acutely aware of their surroundings, felt as if it was burning her.

She yanked her hands back to her own sides and flattened them against the smooth spandex of her thighs. She could have sworn Santana gasped as Brittany's fingers left her skin, but soon she recovered and turned away from Brittany.

"What was that all ab-" It was Skunkhead who voiced the girls' confusion, but Quinn's elbow to her gut had stopped her.

Brittany dared a glance in the direction of the two other girls. Skunkhead's nose was scrunched up in look halfway between disgust and confusion. It was not attractive on the girl's face. Quinn remained silent and only spared a quick glance at Brittany before her entire attention was focused on Santana. She looked to be trying to figure something out, the right side of her mouth pulled back and her head tilted slightly as she continued taking in whatever information her captain was silently giving off.

It was then that Santana quietly stepped around Brittany, ducking her head and bringing her hands up to push her hair back into its usual high pony. She continued walking past the two other cheerleaders and only when she was halfway out the door of the change room did she speak.

"Lets go." It wasn't loud but it was full of authority and both girls before Brittany jumped. Skunkhead nearly sprinted to the exit and threw herself out the door mere inches behind her captain. Quinn was slower to react, probably less afraid of her leader. She looked Brittany up and down once before taking a step backwards, towards the exit. Her mouth pulled back on the right side again before the other side followed and Brittany was surprised to see a genuine smile light up the girls face. Quinn lifted her right arm and gave her a, dare she say cute, little wave before turning and skipping out the door behind her fellow team mates.

Brittany was dumbfounded. What had just happened? What would have happened if the two other girls hadn't interrupted? Brittany's mind swarmed with the possibilities. Would she have kissed Santana, or would Santana have kissed her? Would the other girl have kissed them back? Would the warning bells in her mind have been enough to force her away from Santana before anything had happened? What disappointed Brittany more, being interrupted so she wasn't able to kiss Santana or her being so weak and distracted that she would have allowed herself to be kissed by the other girl?

A locker door slamming brought Brittany out of her own thoughts. She realized that she wasn't the only one left in the room and finally reasoned that nothing would have likely happened had Quinn and the other girl not stopped them. It was likely that someone else would have come across them anyway.

Brittany moved to her locker and pulled her clothes from it. Her mind wandered slightly as she undressed and then redressed herself in her jeans and white long sleeved shirt.

She was still bothered by what happened. What was done was done. She couldn't change that now, all she could do was make sure that it didn't ever almost happen again. Santana was off limits. It frustrated Brittany that she was so attracted to the Latina. Because that, apparently, was the entire issue. Why she was uneasy about her maybe being in a relationship or something with Puck. Why she was so angry at the girl but still wanted to take her pain away. Because she didn't like the idea of Santana with anyone else. Because even though Santana was a bully, she'd been nice to Brittany on occasion and Brittany wanted to see Santana smile like she had in Spanish on Tuesday after she'd woken her. She didn't like seeing a permanent scowl masking her features. Jeeze, a week and she was already getting sappy.

The girl was gorgeous, no one would deny that. And it didn't bother Brittany that she found herself being attracted to a girl, this wasn't the first time. Sure she found herself attracted to guys the majority of the time, and most of those were fellow invisibles that she never let herself get close to. But she had been attracted to a few girls in the past, it wasn't something she'd ever been bothered by. It was just kind of a natural step to her.

No, being attracted to a girl barely phased her. It was being attracted to Santana that bothered her. She was a cheerleader and a bully and, and, a cheerleader. How many rules was she breaking by just admitting this? Well none technically, as long as she never acted on it. But that was the whole issue. She'd been about to act on it. She'd wanted to act on it. Santana was everything that Brittany was against and she couldn't help hating herself at the moment for the way she felt towards her. And even though everything inside of her screamed for her to stay away and ignore the Head Cheerleader, Brittany found that she was having difficulty thinking of a way to do that. How was she supposed to stay away from someone who she came in contact with daily? How was she supposed to ignore her when Brittany's eyes automatically searched her out in any room she entered, even the classes she knew Santana wasn't in she found her eyes darting across the faces looking for hers.

Frustrated with the whole situation, Brittany slammed her locker closed so hard that it bounced back and the corner stabbed her in the arm. She winced and slammed the door again, this time keeping her palm flat on the cold metal so as not to repeat the same mistake. She bit her lip to distract herself from the sharp pain and hastily placed the lock and clicked it closed, pinching her finger in the process.

"Fuck," she growled, picking up her back pack and flinging it over one shoulder before storming out of the locker room. She was halfway out of the exit before she remembered she had detention to get to. She briefly thought of skipping and dealing with whatever consequences would come as a result after the weekend. She just needed to get out of the school, away from jocks and cheerleaders and people and, her. But she knew she shouldn't. She should just get all the unpleasantness over with this week. Maybe she could start new on Monday. Maybe she was just exhausted and that's why she was letting things get to her today.

She turned around and headed up the stairs to her English class. She was already extremely late and she knew that there was a chance of her receiving additional detentions as a result. She hadn't thought to get a tardy slip from Coach Bieste for helping with the equipment. How ironic, getting more detentions for failing to do what she got her first one for.

She sprinted across the hall of the first floor, to get to the stairs on the far end that would lead her to her English room. She skidded around a corner and was halfway down it before she realized this one wasn't empty.

There was a girl standing at an open locker at the far end of the hall. She was humming to herself as she removed some books to place in her bag. Brittany slowed to a quick walk.

Brittany looked down the hall and noticed three girls, cheerleaders to be exact, entering the building from the side entrance by the stairs. As Brittany came closer she was able to identify all four girls in the hall. The three in cheer uniforms were Jes, Carmen from her History class, and of course Santana. Why wouldn't the Latina be here at this moment? It only made sense that she'd run into her again. The girl at her locker Brittany didn't have any classes with and she didn't know her name. But she was the one who had run through the hall covered in slushy on Brittany's first day.

The brunette at her locker only noticed the other girls when she closed the metal door. The sound bounced off the walls of the nearly deserted hallway, echoing for an eerily long time. She must have seen them out of the corner of her eye, because she never looked their way. In fact the only reason Brittany knew the girl saw the Cheerios was her rigid posture and the fact that she had stopped humming.

The Cheerios reached the girl before Brittany did and Brittany found herself slowing down even more. The cheerleaders hadn't noticed she was even in the hall. All of their attention was on the other girl, who stared at the row of lockers in front of her.

"Hey Loser!" Jes said in an overly sweet voice and Brittany new immediately the other girl was in trouble. The girl closed her eyes tightly but continued to silently face the row of lockers. "Hey, I'm talking to you Hobbit!"

Brittany stopped a few steps away to observe the interaction. She wasn't sure why she did. But she looked all four girls over once more. Jes was glaring at the back of the other girl's head. She held a red cup in her right hand and had her left on her hip. Carmen stood right beside Jes and was doing a damn good job of looking ferocious. Santana, on the other hand, didn't seem interested in the interaction going on in front of her. She stood straight and held her arms crossed across her chest and looked about ready to jump in if her squad needed any help. But she stood a little ways away from the other two cheerleaders and she wasn't glaring at the poor girls head. In fact the only time she looked the least bit menacing was when Jes and Carmen both turned to her after the frozen girl whispered something.

"Speak up would ya." Carmen stepped forward, breaking her eye contact with Santana.

"I said, it would be a little more interesting and a lot less repetitive if Jes could come up with her own insults instead of copying Santana's."

Before any of the girls could react, including Brittany, Jes stepped forward and tipped the cup in her hands over the smaller girls head.

"Maybe that will cool you off. You're temper is making you forget who you're talking to."

The smirk on Jes' face was mirrored by Carmen as both began to giggle. Santana stood her ground, but remained silent, waiting for the other two girls to finish with their fun.

The girls hair dripped red slushy on to the white tiled floor, standing out like blood in snow. Her mouth hung open and she gasped a few times before she was able to take a real breath, the cold shocking her system.

It wasn't the first time Brittany had seen someone covered in slushy at this school. It wasn't even the second. Almost every day that week she had witnessed either Rachel or another student running through the hall dripping with multi-coloured frozen juice. The first day Brittany hadn't known what to think about it and even the second time she had somehow hoped that students were just clumsy with their drinks and had ended up spilling them somehow. But as the week wore on and she witnessed more, it was hard to keep the denial in check.

It wasn't enough at McKinley for the losers and geeks to be called names and pushed out of the popular kids way. It wasn't enough for the jocks who tormented Colin with no end in sight. It wasn't enough for the cheerleaders. They had to think up more ingenious ways in which to humiliate their peers.

Brittany had just about enough of their self important ways. She'd been too slow or cowardice on Monday to help Colin, but she wasn't about to let another chance missed eat away at her conscience. She stepped forward and turned the slushied girl to face her. The girl winced, obviously expecting some other form of punishment, not knowing there was anyone else in the hall besides the Cheerios. Brittany's anger towards the cheerleaders only grew with that knowledge. Speaking of which, all three Cheerios turned confused glares in her direction.

"Are you okay?"

"What are you doing?

Brittany and Jes both spoke at the same time.

"What's your name?" Brittany asked the girl, ignoring Jes' question.

The girl tried to open her eyes but hissed and closed them almost as soon as she'd cracked them open. Brittany noticed the syrupy mess covering the girls face and eyes. She tucked her hand into the arm of her shirt and lifted her hand to the girls face. She used the sleeve to dab away the mess from the girl's eyes until she was able to open them for more than a few small moments at a time. When she did, she looked confused up at Brittany.

"What's your name?" Brittany asked again.

"Rachel," was her soft reply. Brittany smiled reassuringly at her as she continued to wipe some juice from Rachel's forehead, stopping any of it from getting in her eyes again.

Her arm was suddenly ripped from Rachel's face and she was whipped so forcefully towards the other three girls that her head spun.

"What the hell do you think you are doing Blondie?" Jes' glare was supposed to terrify Brittany into submission. Brittany knew that. And Carmen was hanging over Jes' shoulder, her back-up.

"I'm helping Rachel." she said simply and tugged her arm out of Jes' grip.

"Like hell you are!" Jes exclaimed reaching for Rachel's arm as if to claim possession of her.

"What are you going to do about it?" Brittany stepped forward, slapping Jes' hand away from Rachel and placed herself in between the two girls. "You're out of slushy at the moment."

The three girls gaped at her. It would have been almost comical the way their mouths opened and closed like fish, if Brittany wasn't so mad at them.

"What do you even care?" Carmen finally asked. "She's just some loser."

"They're right." Brittany heard softly from behind her. "Just leave, I'm used to it by now. Thanks but there's no reason for you to have to get involved. You're only going to make your own life miserable by helping me. You're not going to accomplish anything."

"You should get out of here." Brittany stated, motioning behind her for Rachel to take off. She hesitated briefly and when Brittany looked over her shoulder she noticed Rachels eyes darting between her and the Cheerios worriedly. "Go." Brittany said a little more forcefully. With that Rachel quickly picked up her bag and hurried down the hall to either an exit or a washroom to clean up.

"You should have listened to the Hobbit." Jes spoke.

"Yeah, would have been beneficial to your health." Carmen jumped in.

"What in the world were you planning to get out of this whole act?" Jes asked.

"Peace of mind."

Jes and Carmen burst out i a fit of laughter.

"You like being the martyr huh?" Jes got out after calming her snickering.

"No," Brittany looked from Jes to Carmen, both of whom were wiping their eyes from the tears their laughter had brought up. Her eyes then traveled to Santana, whom remained silent throughout the whole interaction. They locked eyes and Brittany could see confusion. She was standing stiffly, trying to look strong, but was obviously biting the inside of her cheek, which proved to Brittany that she was worried and unsure of what she should do in the situation. She was allowing this. She'd been allowing this to happen for who-knows how long. "I'm not a damn martyr. I'm human. It's ridiculous the way you are treating these people." She gestured the way Rachel had gone. "You two are seniors," her eyes passed over Carmen and Jes, "you really think this is going to matter next year? Do you honestly believe the amount of slushies you dump on other kids heads is a number that is going to matter in a years time?"

"How dare you!" Jes took a step forward, and Brittany followed suit. She wouldn't be able to back down now even if she'd wanted to.

"No, how dare you." Brittany glanced to Santana again but she remained rooted to the spot. She wasn't trying to voice any opinion of her own. A part of Brittany was hoping Santana would jump in and back her up. A part of Brittany wanted Santana to show any sign that she was a decent human being. She wanted to know that she was capable of doing right, or nice things. She wanted a reason to cling onto to explain the feeling she had towards her. Why was she so drawn to her? How could she possibly be attracted to someone like her? There had to be a reason, other than physical. But Santana remained silent and as Brittany's eyes bore into the Latina's dark ones, Santana looked away, and Brittany's hope died, leaving a bitter ache. If that's the way she wanted it, then fine. Just dandy. "How dare all of you. You walk around this school like you're gods or something. You punish and ridicule others so that you can feel slightly better about yourselves. You are bitches and cowards. Punish me all you want, but I'm planning on leaving this place in two years with my humanity intact. And that's more than I can say about you."

Brittany quickly turned away from the three girls and made her way towards the stairs and her detention, which was probably already cancelled for today.

"Fuck no!" She heard Jes call out and was sure she moved to come after her. She wondered why she hadn't expected that. Jes wasn't the type to take insults thrown at her without retaliating.

"Jes, leave it."

"What are you talking about Santana? We can't just let her get away with that shit."

"Practice starts in two minutes." Santana voice called back and Brittany could tell it was getting further away, she must be heading towards the gym, and field.

"So?"

"You know the rules Jes. Reset that pea brain of yours and get a damn move on."

"Fuck the rules. You're the captain; they're your rules."

"No exceptions. Carmen that applies to you as well."

"Damn it." Brittany heard Carmen's voice before she heard a set of footsteps jogging the opposite direction.

"This isn't over Blondie!" Jes yelled before she too gave up and followed her captain.


	9. Chapter 9

_Alrighty, this is a longer chapter to make up for the long wait. It is 4 in the morning at the moment and I work at 9am so I hope you all appreciate and enjoy it. I just finished the last part of this because I was having difficulty on the way the chapter should end. Let me know what y'all think._

_**DaDa**_: _Hey thanks for reviewing and I am glad you are liking Quinn or at least 'warming up' to her lol. I figured we had enough antagonists as it was without jumping on Quinn as well at the moment._

_**Allilurks:**__ Hey, I think you are about the only one that was glad Santana didn't react to the Rachel/Brittany thing lol. But I guess you get it. :)_

_**XoKara**__: Yeah, I'm sure Santana is going to come to some realizations here. But I think Brittany is up for some too. ;)_

_**Guest1 and Guest 2:**__ I wish you Guests would use a name at least so I can tell y'all apart haha. Anyway Guest1 I am sorry The wasn't completely 'soon' updated but i made it longer! Guest 2: You hate the Puckasaurus? How dare you. lol nah, you are completely entitled to your opinions and ya I kinda hate him too right now hehe. _

_Oh and you guys have to to and read 'Love and Other Drugs' by sailormoon19. It's so good. If you haven't read go and start!_

* * *

Her breaths were steady and deep as she heaved the air to and from her lungs. From the burning coming from her chest she knew the air would be rasping as it past her lips, but the music connected to her ears drowned out all other sounds. Even as she felt the jarring impact of the ground reverberating from her feet, up her calves and through her knees, she could only imagine the patter of her runners on the pavement. She forced her legs into a steady rhythm, having had to correct her pace a few times already as her limbs tried, with all their might, to move with the beats swimming from her ears to every fibre of her being. It was natural to her but might draw the skeptical stares of others if she were to dance-run by them.

She'd been agitated for a day and a half already. Even spending most of her day Saturday dancing didn't do much to calm her. Which was why she had resorted to running today. It had been a very long time since she had truly ran any considerable distance. Dancing kept her in shape and usually eased any stress or calmed any nerves so she didn't resort to running very often. But when she woke up that morning, still tense and short tempered she knew she needed to do something to rid herself of those feelings. A few miles into her run she'd been about ready to drop, wondering how she'd ever managed to participate in the marathons she ran in when younger. She forced her shaking legs to continue moving and a couple more miles later she'd gotten past the worst of the pain. The stitch in her side had disappeared and the shin splints had faded to a dull throb instead of the sharp piercing of knives.

Although she was in more pain then she could remember being in, she was glad she had decided to run. She'd been so distracted by the pain and willing her body into a steady pace that she'd been unable to think much on the reasons for her agitation. The day before when she'd tried to forget using dance she ended up increasing her dark mood, her dancing only enhancing what she was feeling. Now she was able to separate her body from her mind. She knew she was still upset with everything that happened on Friday, but as her body was too tired and busy with another task to register her mind's discomfort she found she was able to relive the past week with a clarity that hadn't been afforded her earlier.

She was beginning to realize that something was different in Lima, or maybe something was just different in her. She couldn't pinpoint an exact difference between her now and her a year ago but something had to have changed. A year ago she never would have allowed a single girl to affect her the way Santana did. A year ago she never would have stepped in for a loser or stood up to a cheerleader. A year ago she wouldn't have to worry about every second of the next day. School used to just be an annoyance that was required of her, now it had turned into a whole new level of hell.

Brittany wasn't fool enough to believe that Jes was going to just ignore her performance on Friday. She hadn't thought the whole, standing up to a cheerleader, thing through completely. But even with the danger she was sure she was in, she couldn't find it in herself to regret her actions. She'd done the right thing. The only thing she had now to worry about was how she was going to survive being on the bottom. She was sure her invisibility status was on hold for the foreseeable future. Maybe if she didn't do much until Christmas she would be able to come back after the break and slip into her old role without anyone really noticing.

Even in her head it sounded like nothing more than wishful thinking.

She'd already put up with the shoves in the hallways and name calling and even though the slushies looked super cold, it couldn't be that bad. Even if she had to put up with a slushy facial or two she was sure she would live. What bothered her now was the thought of the unknown. She knew the bullying was about to increase, what she didn't know was how she was going to deal with it. Lima had changed the game or she'd done it herself. Ignoring was her built in defense but now she wasn't sure of her own reactions. She didn't disagree with anything she'd done, logically she knew she was in the right. But not knowing when or how she was going to end up angering more cheerleaders was what was getting to her. She wished she had a plan, but how does someone plan for the unknown?

She realized her throat was burning and lifted her water bottle to her lips. One single drop fell to her tongue and that was it. She'd run out of water. _Fantastic_. She slowed to a walk and immediately her body betrayed her. Every muscle throbbed painfully at the same time and her lungs burned so harshly she was only able to wheeze the air her body needed as she doubled over leaning her hands on her knees. The instant her body realized it was getting a break it apparently made its feelings known, and it felt as close to death as Brittany could imagine.

When she was able to straighten once more she scanned the area around her. A coffee shop was situated across the street. She looked down at what she was wearing, a pink sports bra and black shorts, probably not proper coffee shop attire. But she wasn't yet familiar enough with the area to know if a 711 or other convenience store was just around the corner or ten blocks away. She tried swallowing some nonexistent saliva and winced as the dryness in her throat made it feel like she had tried swallowing a needle.

Mental note: either bring more water during runs or ration it more carefully. Also, run more often to lessen the shock to muscles.

Brittany groaned as she stepped off the curb, feeling the ache in pretty much every part of her legs and lower back. As she approached the coffee shop she read the sign. _The Lima Bean_. She smiled up at it. Whoever named this place was a genius. Lima bean, coffee bean. Hopefully they were as genius with their drinks as they were with word play.

She walked in the glass doors and queued up in line. There were a few adults and a couple teenagers ahead of her. She felt slightly uncomfortable in her running clothes but the air conditioning felt amazing on her heated skin. As she stepped up to the counter to order she realized her muscles were starting to seize, too bad the amazing air conditioning wasn't helping her in that department. She rolled her shoulders to keep them from contracting at least. She suddenly realized her ear buds were still playing music in her head when the typical sounds you would expect a coffee shop to hold remained absent. She quickly pulled one bud from her ear just as the attendant opened their mouth.

"Hi, welcome to the Lima Bean. How can I help you today?" A tall, thin guy asked her as he continued to label cups from the previous couple that had ordered. Brittany looked up to the board and realized she had no clue what half of the things were. She knew she didn't want any kind of hot drink and asking for just a water seemed a waste. She realized her delayed response had annoyed him when he sighed and asked what he could get her again. Finally finding the 'cold' menu she ordered the first thing she found that sounded half decent. Only when he had picked up and wrote the order on her cup did he look at her.

His eyes went wide as he scanned her body, or as much as he could before the counter cut off his wandering eyes. He was actually fairly decent looking. And if she hadn't made it a new rule to absolutely follow her old rules than Coffee Dude may have actually stood a chance with her. But as it was she threw her five bucks on the counter and smiled at him before stepping aside to wait for her drink. When a petite girl handed her a cup over the counter Brittany turned to find a place to sit. She knew it would be a few minutes before she would be recovered enough to make the trek back home.

She really, really had to stop being surprised at finding Santana around every corner. But as Brittany's scan of the tables brought up none other than the Latina herself she was taken aback for a moment. At first she thought she was seeing things. You know sometimes you will glance quickly at someone and think you are seeing someone else. That's what Brittany thought was happening. Because Santana was wearing normal clothes, a blue tee shirt was visible above the table, and Santana had her hair down, actually out of the Cheerio pony. It was held back neatly from her face by a blue headband that matched her shirt. But the more Brittany stared the more sure she was that the girl was the Head Cheerio and not some illusion her brain was trying to fool her with. She was stunning. Her stomach clenched and she nearly choked on her drink. Apparently forgetting how to swallow was another Santana side effect.

The second Santana turned her attention from the girls she was sitting with in Brittany's direction Brittany found herself moving. She was outside before she even realized she had told her body to move. But then again, maybe she hadn't. It took several blocks for her heart to stop racing. She knew that avoidance at school wasn't going to be as easy as it had been today. Even seeing Santana nearly threw her into a catatonic state. Why couldn't it have been an invisible girl that she'd been attracted to? Even a damn jock would have been better than falling for the Head Cheerio, who was most likely as straight as they came. Brittany had convinced herself she'd been imagining Santana's gaze on her lips the other day.

Brittany realized that ignoring the feelings she had around Santana wasn't really an option. How did someone ignore the racing heart, or stomach flops or butterflies? No ignoring wasn't an option, but pretending was. She could pretend those things weren't happening. Even if she wouldn't be able to fool herself, she would at least be able to try and fool the rest of the school. Besides she was still angry with the other girl. She could use that as a mask of sorts right?

Brittany giggled as she continued her walk home, sipping on her berry iced beverage. A loser who fell for the most popular girl in school; it was so cliche. Well if nothing else at least she could say she found one thing about herself that was normal.

***

School was exactly what she had imagined it to be Monday. First Brittany had woken up barely able to move and it had taken a very hot and extremely long shower to loosen her muscles enough so that she didn't cringe with every movement. Then she had received no less than four shoves into lockers and three shoulder bumps from various cheerleaders on her way to her locker in the morning. She never noticed how many Cheerios there actually were in the school until she literally ran into every one of them. Thankfully none had been Jes, she wasn't looking forward to that encounter.

When she finally reached her locker she stood staring at the door. Pasted on it was a piece of paper with a very crude drawing of what she assumed was supposed to be her. The header on the paper asked 'What's the capital of Ohio?' and in a speech bubble pointed to the very poorly drawn, cross eyed version of herself was 'It's O right?'

She wasn't quite sure what the protocol was for this kind of thing. She knew from the giggles and whispers that the drawing had in fact attracted a small crowd, but she couldn't bring herself to look around to be certain of how many. She was afraid of making eye contact with any of them.

"What the hell. Mind moving your loser ass out of my way?"

Brittany gasped and spun around just in time to see a curly red haired kid being pushed out of the way and Santana emerge through the circle of onlookers. She paused as she caught sight of Brittany in the middle of the group. Her chocolate eyes moved from Brittany's form to the paper visible behind her. Her brows squinted and Brittany wondered if Santana needed glasses or if she was actually displeased with what was written on her locker. Brittany spun around and ripped the paper from her locker door and crumpled it up into a ball. She turned back around and noticed Santana's eyes were back on her. Brittany was sure that she was trying to tell her something. The brown was softer than it had been before. All of her past experience with people watching told her that Santana looked apologetic. But what was she apologizing for? For Brittany being a loser? That her stupidity was now public knowledge? For condoning what this was or whoever had done it?

Brittany started forward to get to class, to get away from the crowd snickering at her, when she noticed Santana step towards her and open her mouth.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Jes' voice spoke up tauntingly over the whispers of the other students. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as Jes, Carmen and a couple other senior Cheerios stepped through. Brittany heard the audible clack of Santana's jaw snapping shut. Brittany would find humour in there being someone who could do the same to Santana as the Head cheerleader could to all others except for some reason Jes being able to do it to Santana was more terrifying than anything. Jes looked to the empty space behind Brittany and frowned. "Who told you you were allowed to remove my picture?"

Brittany stared at the group of girls in front of her. They all looked down their noses at her and looked as if they'd walked into the boys locker room and smelled something unpleasant. She clenched the paper ball in her hand tighter. She tried once again to maneuver around the girls but they fanned out so she was unable to. Like, did they rehearse that move?

"She asked you a question dork." Carmen spoke up being the closest in their shuffled move.

"Did you have to do this first thing in the morning?"

All eyes whipped to Santana and by the looks on the seniors faces they were unaware Santana was present.

"What does it matter when we do it. She's here, we're here, and there is quite a sizable gathering so the message will be heard loud and clear."

Jes did have a point, as loathe as Brittany was to admit it. If they were going to punish her for her actions against them the logical thing to do would be to make an example of her so no others would try the same thing. Brittany took a few spare seconds to look at the increasing number of students surrounding them. There had to be at least a couple dozen.

"But right near my locker you didn't. Take this down the fucking hall please. I'm not in the mood for this shit. I have a meeting with Coach in a few minutes and I don't plan on getting a lecture on timely appearances."

Jes and Santana glared at one another for an awkward amount of time. Some of the seniors, Carmen included, glared just as harshly at their captain as Jes but a couple actually looked as if they wished they didn't have to be there.

"Down the hall?" Jes asked.

"Yes please, that would be smashing of you." Santana mocked.

"You want us to move this crowd down the hall?" Jes' voice rose in pitch.

"I don't really care where you take this Jes. Just take it away from my locker."

Jes looked as if she was debating on if she should obey her captain or to disregard her altogether. And from the way Santana's eyes blazed it was obvious she knew what was going on in the other girls mind as well.

"Now!" Santana took a step forward and motioned with her head for the group to take off. A few onlookers dispersed, afraid that they would be singled out if they were to linger. The majority knew they were safe in numbers. Santana had tunnel vision at the moment and her sights were glued to her squad.

"This will just take another moment." Jes turned her gaze back to Brittany.

Brittany wasn't sure who was more surprised at Jes' disobedience, her or Santana, or any number of the students observing the interaction. Brittany spared a glance at Santana and noticed she was scrutinizing the crowd around them. Jes and her were playing the same game. How to save face in front of so many. Neither could come out of this as a winner and Brittany was sure that she wasn't going to fare any better with either option.

"Put the picture back up." Jes stepped closer, almost into her personal space. She was trying to be intimidating but all Brittany could think of was the heat emanating from her left where she was sure Santana's anger was brewing. She wasn't one to be ignored or disrespected, that much Brittany knew.

"No."

"It wasn't a request, it was an order. Now put it back up."

Brittany flicked her wrist at the girl before her and the balled up piece of paper hit her in the nose before the Jes was able to react.

"You do it if you want." Brittany turned to push her way through the now silent crowd. Her whole body was shaking and she was sure if she didn't get to her class and desk soon she would collapse right in the hallway. She just about burnt up all her nerves for the entire year in the first week in Lima. She knew her actions would only spur Jes and the other cheerleaders on more, but she couldn't stop herself. This was the unknown thing she was waiting for.

She'd only made it through the first layer of students before someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the circle. She was spun around by her arm, which ached all the way up to her shoulder. The pull on her arm stopped seconds before Brittany's other shoulder and forehead came in contact with the row of lockers. Stars exploded in her vision and she could see only blinding white for a few moments. As her vision returned she was aware of Jes' hand digging painfully into her left shoulder.

"You are going to pay for that." The menacing tone she used was almost completely lost on Brittany as she was still trying to hear past the ringing in her head.

"Times up bitches." Santana stepped forward and ripped Jes' hand off of Brittany's shoulder, causing her to whimper slightly as Jes' nails left scratches on her skin at their rough removal. "I now have one minute to get to Coaches office and I will not be lectured or punished without adding each and every one of your names to the list.

"Are you blind Santana? Blondie just threw that thing at me." Jes tried to step around Santana to get to Brittany once more but was stopped when Santana pushed her back a few more steps.

"I saw. Are you deaf?" Santana took a step forward and pushed Jes once more, causing her to fall back into Carmen and another girl who just managed to catch her in their surprised state. "I _warned_ you to move it along. You said it would only take a moment." She took another step forward and all five seniors took a step back. "I _gave_ you that moment. I can't help it that even with the upper hand you let her get the best of you again. Now I won't say it again. Anyone still standing here in five seconds will regret it. That is a promise."

The crowd dispersed first, knowing full well what could happen if they remained. The senior Cheerios moved slower but soon only Jes and Carmen were standing their ground. Finally they must have decided that Santana's threat was more serious than punishing Brittany without the attention the other students had been giving them. They huffed and sighed dramatically but they eventually made their way down the hall.

Santana remained watching them and only when Jes and Carmen turned the corner at the far end of the hall did her shoulder slump and she turn around. She made a bee line for her locker and wrenched it open so hard Brittany was afraid it would bounce back and hit her, like her Gym locker had done on Friday, but it didn't.

Brittany was at a loss to what just happened. She slowly came to the realization as her head stopped spinning that Santana had saved her once more. She leaned her head back against the metal behind her and observed Santana's hurried movements.

"Thank you, again," she whispered.

Santana slammed her locker closed so hard the sound caused Brittany to wince as the ringing returned. "How about next time you lay low and don't egg her on."

"I didn't throw an egg at her." she defended as her hearing returned to normal.

"I-what?" Santana shook her head and observed Brittany again. "I didn't say you egged her I said you egged her on."

"Oh." That made a hell of a lot more sense. If the drawing hadn't given Santana the impression she was stupid then that would do it. "I couldn't stop myself. I really don't like her."

"I don't like a lot of people. Do you see me going around asking for punishment from them?"

"Actually, I-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence." Brittany's jaw snapped shut again. Santana obviously took back whatever authoritative power Jes had stolen from her. "Lets get this whole thing straight. I didn't stop her solely to help you out. She went against me. I'm her captain, not the other way around and I don't take kindly to mutiny within my squad. I stepped in because she needed to be put in her place and the easiest way to do that was to show her that the entire school still follows my direction not hers."

"Fine." Brittany answered when Santana gave her a questioning look, obviously asking if she understood, if it was straightened out.

"And you better figure out quickly how everything works around here or else Jes is going to make your life a living hell. Keep your damn head down and stop pushing her fucking buttons. I'm sick and tired of _inadvertently_ saving your ass." With that Santana brushed past her and Brittany could hear her jogging down the hallway.

Tears pricked at the back of Brittany's eyes and her stomach dropped to what felt like her toes. Santana not only thought she was a loser but a stupid waste of space at that. She wasn't trying to win the girl over or anything but to have her think so lowly of her felt pretty crappy. She quickly wiped her eyes and continued to Math as she realized there were still a few students wandering the hall.

The rest of the day went just as smoothly. Math was a tense affair as Brittany kept finding herself dodging erasers and crumpled pieces of paper from the opposite side of the room. Kind or ironic considering she'd been the one to start the paper fight with Jes. Mr. Bates was apparently still mad at Brittany for whatever he had been the whole of last week because he ignored the behavior for the most part. Brittany would even swear that, on one instance where a ball had hit her and gotten stuck in her hair, he had smirked. The only positive to the treatment was JBI was interrupted mid-speech by a flying airplane getting stuck in his afro. She had been saved from turning him down once again.

Santana strutted into class over fifteen minutes late and threw a note onto the Zebra's desk before heading to her desk. One of the Cheerios was too preoccupied with making a half dozen projectiles to throw at Brittany that she didn't notice Santana's arrival.

When she let loose one of her balls of paper and Santana walked right in its path the entire class gasped as if one living beast. Santana bent over and picked up the projectile as one of the other Cheerios giggled into her hand, being the only one to find the situation funny. Santana proceeded to throw the ball at the laughing girl, hitting her square in the forehead before she smacked the girl who'd thrown it at her on the back of the head and then calmly took her seat. The objects had decreased after that but hadn't stopped completely.

English would have been better if she hadn't angered Mr. Jenkins on Friday with missing her detention. She had tried to explain that she had shown up, except by the time she had he was already gone, but apparently that wasn't a valid excuse and he had proceeded to give her detention every day that week as a punishment. It wasn't as if she hadn't assumed that would happen but the teacher had obviously made up his mind about her because of it. He was almost as bad as the Zebra and Brittany found herself calling him Mr. Jerkins in her head by the end of the class. His attitude towards her and the fact that he did little to dissuade the closer cheerleaders from pestering her made English even less desirable than it normally would have been.

History was good until halfway through the class Carmen had managed to pass her a not which read 'Watch your back!' It was a little disheartening to know her last class Before Gym was going to be a pretty big pain as well.

Gym was horrible. She expected it though. Last week wasn't a walk in the park but now Jes had most of the squad against her and it wasn't just Jes who spiked the ball in her direction anymore. She had plenty of red ball-burns, she called them, and new bruises to go with her growing collection. She was kind of glad her parents were such softies and pushovers because if a stranger had seen the damage to her body she was sure they would assume child abuse. And then Brittany would be taken into foster care and that would be a-whole-nother can of worms Jes would definitely use against her. But no one would accuse her sweet dorky parents of anything that sinister.

Spanish, which she had been dreading all through Math class was surprisingly the best class of the day. No one, it appeared, was willing to disrupt Santana to get to her. Being in such close proximity to the Head Cheerio was not something Brittany thought would cause her relief. Dread, uncertainty, and uncomfortably pleasant and unwanted butterflies, yes. Relief and calmness and sanity, no. But that was what Spanish had afforded her and she knew, without a doubt, that Santana was to thank for that. Saving her inadvertently once again.

She ran into Rachel a few times during the day, once on her way to English. Rachel had tried to speak with her but Brittany had told her she just didn't have time because she needed to speak with her teacher. The second time coincidentally she was on her way to her English class once more, this time for detention. Not wanting to anger Mr. Jerkins anymore than she already had she blew Rachel off again as nicely as she possibly could. Rachel seemed to be the only student aside from JBI that was still paying her any positive attention, if you could call JBI's advances positive, and Brittany didn't want to upset the girl. She just had really, really bad timing.

After an hour of sorting through old tests and tidying up the classroom under Mr. Jerkins scrutinizing eye, Brittany was glad to exit the class. A week of this was going to be agonizing. She wasted no time in making it to her locker, knowing the Cheerios would be either gone or at practice. The first thing she noted was Rachel leaning up against her locker when she approached.

"Hey, Brittany." She said smiling widely. "I hope you aren't too busy at the moment. I know what you did on Friday has gotten you into quite the predicament." Her mouth moved really fast and her eyes bugged kind of similar to JBI's. Maybe they were related somehow. Both were Jewish as far as Brittany could tell. "But I can't say I didn't warn you at the time. I hope there aren't any hard feelings after everything is said and done. I really appreciated you stepping in to help, not many students would around here. Santana and her minions have everyone on a pretty tight leash and fear and ignorance are their best weapons sadly."

Rachel finally paused to take a few breaths and it took Brittany a second or two to catch up and realize the small brunette was finished. But upon replaying her words back Brittany didn't see any point where she was expected to give a response.

"So no hard feelings?" Rachel asked while holding her hand out towards Brittany.

"Of course not." Brittany responded, taking the smaller girls hand and shaking. She had surprisingly large hands for a girl so small. "I knew what I was doing at the time. I'm slightly exhausted dealing with everything today but I don't regret what happened Friday. It wasn't right of them to do that to you and they needed to be told that. Plus I wasn't in the most tolerant of moods that day anyway. I don't like bullying."

Rachel smiled wider at hearing that. "It's refreshing hearing that from someone like you."

Brittany was confused at the girls response. Someone like you? What did that mean? "Someone like me?"

"Yeah, you know." She gestured up and down Brittany's body, which only confused her even more. It must have shown because Rachel seemed obligated to elaborate. "You know, someone that looks like you do. Gorgeous, smart from what I've heard, and who obviously came from a school where you were popular." Brittany opened her mouth to refute all claims but Rachel continued. "I'd like to see the school where you came from. If all the popular students don't tolerate bullying like you it must be a pretty good place to study."

"I wasn't popular." Brittany stated quickly before Rachel started talking again. She didn't want to give the girl the wrong idea.

"Oh, well that's fine too. I just assumed." there was an awkward full minute of silence between them before Rachel, not surprisingly, broke the silence. "I was actually trying all day to talk to you to ask if you were interested in joining our Glee club."

"I don't sing." Brittany blurted before she could think of a different response. It was true, she hardly sang outside of the shower. She didn't bother telling Rachel that she was a dancer, because well Glee clubs had dancers too. And she didn't want to join. Her rules forbid it.

"Too bad." She really didn't look as broken up about that fact as Brittany thought she should have. "We have openings for background dancers. Although you can't call what they do dancing really, mostly it's just swaying back and forth while I sing my solos. Nothing to hard to learn or overly strenuous. You wouldn't be overwhelmed or anything back there."

"No thanks, not my kind of thing. But thank you anyway." Brittany finally was able to open her locker without seeming rude. She needed the distraction or else she was bound to burst out laughing. When had any kind of dancing been anything close to strenuous for her in years? But at least she wasn't lying. swaying in the background seemed like it was bound to bore her more than anything. Might as well just go home and dance instead.

"Okay, well if you change your mind just let me know. And don't let me forget I owe you a new shirt. I assume the one you were wearing Friday was ruined." She didn't wait for Brittany to respond before turning and walking down the hall.

***

The rest of her week didn't go any better than the first day. The only positive Brittany could find was that she somehow avoided the whole slushy thing. That and her locker and Spanish class became her safe zones. Whatever Santana had done to Jes and her friends had effectively stopped them from confronting Brittany within Santana's presence. Or at least they stopped tormenting her near any place that might get in their captains way. Brittany was sure Santana had done something, because the small altercation on Monday at the lockers didn't seem quite enough to deter Jes so effectively.

Brittany was almost able to pretend everything was normal when in class. Zebra, after the third day, had put a stop to the projectile throwing and threatening notes. She was sure it wasn't for her benefit though. Most likely he was seeing a drastic decrease in grades from the last pop quiz he had given Wednesday and didn't want to look poorly at their staff meetings, or whatever review teachers were given.

And Spanish continued to be the safest place for her during the day. It was rare that she arrived before Santana and those were the only days that she had to worry that Josh might start something. The rest of the students didn't seem to hold the same grudge as the jocks and cheerleaders did against her. She found herself looking forward to the class each day, even when she knew there was a possibility of Mr. Schuester calling her out in class again. He had only done it once the past week and she knew she had to answer something soon or he would want to have another talk with her about participation again.

The most frustrated she seemed to get was over Mr. Schuester's lack of concern with Santana's participation. She rarely looked away from the window and never gave opinions or even spoke up in class. When the class was practicing pronunciation Santana opted to stay silent and she was never asked upon to speak Spanish aloud. Brittany had just been lucky enough to have never been forced to speak. Mr. Schuester had asked her to but hadn't pushed the subject and never asked a question in Spanish directly to her like he had done to several of the other students. She knew that it was probably coming, but for the time being she was happy to stew in her carefree Spanish bubble.

When Brittany had realized that Ms. Smolinski would not tolerate any distractions in her History class as Mr. Bates and to an extent Mr. Jerkins had she was thankful. Carmen seemed put out but it didn't last long. Wednesday when Brittany took her usual seat, Carmen sat directly behind her. And Carmen could do plenty of tormenting in her new position without catching the attention of their teacher. She alternated between kicking Brittany's chair to tossing things at the back of her head and for ten agonizing minutes had even taken up pulling out individual strands of her hair. The Cheerios and jocks in her English class were less brutal in their punishment. They taunted and glared and tried to trip her on her way to her desk but it was mostly an annoyance than anything else.

She would do almost anything to get out of Gym each day. Brittany put up with the increased physicality of volleyball because she pretty much had to. During their assigned weight room day Brittany had thought she would be given a break but that was short lived when a medicine ball had been 'accidentally' thrown her way. Brittany found she much preferred the lighter balls of the volleyball court to the dense ones in the weight room.

As Friday was coming to a close, Brittany congratulated herself on almost surviving another whole week. She just had to get through Gym and then she would have another weekend to recuperate and hopefully allow some bruises to heal. It was really getting ridiculous the amount of sores that covered her arms and legs.

It came as no surprise that the teams were once again split into Cheerios and losers. Each girl knew their place in the hierarchy. Even as Coach Bieste chose different 'captains' each day the teams seemed to be split into mainly the same students. The guys teams mimicked the girls exactly. Colin had found a permanent place within the jocks team and the shoves and serves to the back of his head seemed to be lessening, but they by no means had stopped. In the halls he was still treated like a servant and the jocks taunted him mercilessly.

Brittany stopped trying to actually play the game and instead focused her efforts on lessening the injuries to herself. Non-Cheerios of the other team had begun to copy their team mates, looking for approval. And the way Jes praised each when they successfully hit their target was enough to get the whole team in a frenzy to compete to see who could hit her the most. In fact, the game score was replaced with a scoring system against her. Where was the fun in keeping score against a team that never scored? But keeping target scoring on Brittany seemed to make the other team pretty damn happy.

"That's three for me," a blonde non-Cheerio stated as Brittany shook her right hand. She'd aggravated a preexisting sprain in her middle finger by blocking the last spike aimed at her face.

Brittany glared at the girl as Jes smiled and gave her a high five for her success. The blonde beamed like she'd just won an Emmy. Brittany rolled her eyes as she braced herself for the next set. There was one thing that Brittany couldn't help but notice, Quinn and Santana didn't partake in the rest of their teams fun. She couldn't help but dwell on it. Did that mean they didn't agree with what Jes was instigating or did they just think Brittany wasn't worth their effort. She was more inclined to believe the latter because she'd seen Santana condemn one student already, she obviously wasn't against keeping the losers in line. But somewhere Brittany sort of hoped that Santana chose not to participate because she didn't want to harm her. That thought was more of a daydream. Brittany was still affected with the words Santana had spoken on Monday. Brittany was an inconvenience to Santana, nothing more.

Quinn served the ball to the far left of Brittany's team, incidentally the complete opposite side of the court than where Brittany was stationed. The girl with thick glasses jumped out of the ball's way as it landed in the space her feet had previously occupied. Tina retrieved the ball and rolled it back to Quinn. The second serve was returned by one of the more competitive nobodies on Brittany's team. Brittany groaned knowing what was coming. She had just enough time to raise her arm against Skunkhead's spike. The ball was a little off target but as Brittany covered her head with her right arm, the ball connected perfectly with her hand, bending her already sprained finger backwards.

"Shit!" Brittany brought her hand to her chest and cradled it with her left and she spun around in a circle before jumping on the spot a few times. Fuck did that hurt.

"You okay Pierce?" Brittany heard Coach Bieste's voice carry from across the gym.

"Yeah," she replied automatically. She knew if she spoke up against the other girls she would just seem more pathetic in their eyes. Plus she knew it would change nothing. She took up her spot on the court again and saw Quinn take up hers, ball in hand.

"Watch those spikes girls. We don't want any injuries. I'm watching." Bieste threatened.

Quinn served it to the girl with the glasses again and again gained a point for her team. Well if they were keeping score that way anymore she would have. The next one was placed behind Brittany. She heard the smack of bare skin on the smooth surface of the ball before seeing it soar over her head back to the Cheerios side. One of the Cheerios, whose name was Sam, Brittany had learned, swiftly maneuvered under the ball and set it up. The ball soared high into the air and immediately Brittany began raising her arms to protect herself from the inevitable hit that was to come.

What she didn't expect was Santana sprinting forward and shouldering Jes out of the way midair and spiking the ball herself. It harmlessly landed with a loud thwack in between Tina and the girl with glasses.

"What the fuck," Jes exclaimed when she landed and caught her balance. "That was a perfect set up. You cost me a point Lopez."

Santana had already landed and turned to the loud voice of her senior team mate. "You're lucky that's all you lost."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Take a gander behind you. Bieste is watching us like a hawk. Do you want to get in trouble?" They stared each other down until Jes averted her eyes to look over her shoulder and Brittany's eyes followed. Sure enough Coach Bieste was sitting on the bleachers at the far end of the gym, eyes glued on the two girls teams.

"I'm not worried about Bieste sh-"

Santana stepped forward into Jes' personal space cutting the girls words off with her actions. "Well you should be. If you end your stupid fake baked ass in detention you'll be late for practice."

"Would be so worth it." Jes and the other Cheerios, minus Quinn, snickered.

"You don't want to try me today Baby Giant. I'm not in the mood. I had a meeting with Coach this morning and she's going to be observing the team this afternoon and if you are late so help me, you will regret it until the day you die." Jes rolled her eyes. Brittany cringed inwardly. Did the girl never learn? "I'm not fooling around." Santana reached out and pushed Jes' shoulder. "If you can't get your shit together and focus on what's important you may as well leave your uniform by my locker after your detention." Santana walked past Jes to take up her spot on the court once more. "Now reset, and don't fuck up again."

Jes turned to the girls on the squad looking for back up but none of them would return her gaze. They were all doing a pretty good job of ignoring the fact they had been playing the same game as Jes had been. But with a threat like getting kicked off the team in their near future, none seemed to have the nerve to test the waters with their captain any further. The glare that Brittany received from Jes when she turned her attention back around was intense to say the least.

When Quinn served it to the center, still well away from her, Brittany took the time to glance at Santana. For playing against a team that could barely return a serve Santana looked as if she was in the middle of a championship volleyball tournament. She bounced from the toes of one foot to the other and had her knees bent. Her arms were held in front of her, waiting for the return that rarely ever came. She'd gotten into another argument with Jes over her. Another inadvertent save.

"Perfect!"

Brittany looked up just in time to see Jes bring her hand down hard on the ball. When had it even been returned and who had set the ball up for her? She didn't have time to bring her arms up before the ball connected strongly with her chin. Her head snapped back and Brittany had to stagger a few steps to prevent herself from toppling over. Her head spun for a brief moment in shock. When she was able to focus once more she was met with the livid eyes of the Head Cheerio.

"Fuck! I said reset." Santana spoke and Jes turned to face her with a smug smile on her face. "What do you not get about that?"

"I reset," Jes replied smartly. "I reset for a new round. I'm up by one."

"R-E-S-E-T, reset, as in reset your body. Reset your mind. Reset your emotions. Reset your dam fucking bullshit way of thinking and focus. How are you going to explain that to Bieste?" Santana motioned to Brittany and her eyes went wide when they reached Brittany's face. "She's bleeding." Santana added quietly.

Bleeding?

Brittany reached up with her left hand and touched the spot where the ball had struck her. When that brought up nothing she touched under her nose, looking to her hand once more for blood, still nothing. Brittany sucked her bottom lip into her mouth in confusion and gasped. She ground her teeth together tightly until the sharpest of the pain subsided. She had tasted blood and a part of her mind was telling her her lip was obviously what Santana had meant, but another part wasn't satisfied. How could she not notice she was bleeding? She brought her hand back to her face and tenderly touched her lip, it stung again. When she looked down at her fingers she was still surprised to see red, even though she knew she should have been expecting it.

"Bieste didn't see a damn thing. Stop getting so worked up about it. I'm just having a little fun Santana." Jes waved her hand at Santana as if to shoo her away and Santana immediately grabbed the girls wrist and twisted it. Jes let out a surprised shriek before hissing at the obvious discomfort of the position her hand was forced into.

"You better watch yourself. I warned you of what will happen if you continue with your little fun."

"Come on S, we were all just joking around. No big deal." Skunkhead spoke up in Jes' defense.

"Ten laps around the field before practice today Marcy and that goes for anyone else who opens their mouth without being told to speak." Brittany was surprised to hear Quinn speak up. She was even more surprised that Skunkhead, or Marcy, had the decency to look ashamed under Quinn's criticizing gaze. Quinn snapped her fingers and all four of the Cheerios nodded their heads. "Good."

"Am I being clear or do I need to go into more detail?" Santana seemed not to pay attention to the altercation between Quinn and the other Cheerios.

"Perfectly." Jes finally responded after looking to her team mates and realized no one was going to take her side against their captain.

"Good." Santana dropped Jes' wrist and walked over to Quinn. They spoke in whispered words. Brittany watched as Quinn placed a hand on Santana's arm and spoke into her ear. Santana nodded and took a deep breath.

"What's going on here?" Brittany jumped and her attention moved from Santana to Coach Bieste who had somehow managed to sneak up on all of them. She looked towards Brittany. "You're bleeding Pierce, what happened?"

"She tripped and ran face first into the pole." Jes quickly supplied.

Brittany was unaware that the boys teams had also stopped their game, to see what the problem was on the girls side of the gym, until they burst out laughing at Jes' explanation. Brittany turned bright red and ducked her head in embarrassment. She took a peak in Santana's direction. She was glaring daggers at Jes, but wasn't speaking up to refute the claim. Quinn and the rest of the squad remained silently observing.

"Are you okay or do you need to sit out the rest of the day?" Coach Bieste asked her. Brittany would love to have an excuse to get away from the other students, away from Jes, but she was rapidly realizing her embarrassment was turning to anger. She didn't want to give Jes the satisfaction.

"I'm fine." Brittany responded through gritted teeth. When Bieste asked if she was sure all Brittany did was nod her head.

When Bieste walked away all teams took up their positions again. Brittany glared angrily at Jes through the net, still feeling the dozens of eyes on her and the laughter in her ears. Jes smiled smugly back at her, knowing there was little to nothing Brittany could do about it.

Quinn served once again as Brittany's team still had not scored a single point all period. It once again was served to the middle and Tina was able to bump it up and over the net. She seemed to be the only one that was regularly trying to play the game on Brittany's team. Not that her effort mattered much. Her hit ended up going along the boundary line and Quinn had to awkwardly twist to get her arms in the right spot to bump it back towards the net. She managed but Brittany could tell it wasn't going to quite make it over. Of course she wasn't the only one to notice as Jes jumped to help it along.

Brittany wasn't sure if Jes had forgotten what Santana had pretty much lectured her on or if she was deliberately disobeying once again, but her anger flared. As Jes once again spiked the ball in her direction, Brittany didn't try to protect herself this time. She jumped back and bumped the ball up into the air towards the net. Jes had immediately landed and turned to smirk in Santana's direction. Brittany could clearly see as she jumped up above the net to intercept her own set up. She knew it was technically against the rules but really what about the actual rules had they been following the past couple days. A volleyball game had turned into a battlefield of soldier versus target. Brittany was tired of being the target.

Her spike hit her target square in the face. Jes hadn't even seen the hit coming until the last moment so had no time to react. She stumbled back, the impact causing her to lose her balance. She ended up tripping over Quinn's foot, falling flat on her butt. A collective gasp went up from both girl's teams, followed by the loud laughter of Puck and his fellow jocks.

Just as Jes was getting up the bell rang ending classes for the day. It didn't deter the cheer leader though as she made her way in Brittany's direction. Only when Santana stuck her arm in Jes' way did the girl seem to break out of her revenge filled tunnel vision. She glared at her captain and pushed her arm out of the way. Quinn had motioned for the others and they didn't hesitate to follow. Santana looked about to step in once more but Bieste appeared at that moment.

"Jes, hit the showers. Santana and Brittany you can help take the nets down before you leave." She only stayed long enough to watch Jes huff and storm away before she too left the gym in the direction of her office.

Santana and Brittany worked in silence. Brittany was still angry and every drop of sweat that found it's way to her split lip increased the feeling. How much more was she supposed to take from Jes and her followers. It was getting ridiculous.

As soon as she helped Santana fold the last of the nets she practically shoved the material into the brunettes hands and hastened to the locker rooms. She didn't have much time left to get dressed and get to her detention. Today was the last day of her sentence and she didn't plan on getting it increased for not showing up again.

"Hey!" Brittany heard Santana call but she didn't bother to turn around. "There's still two poles to put away."

When Brittany entered the change room she noticed that is was nearly empty. At first she thought it was weird. The room never cleared out that fast. But thinking of what had happened in the gym she realized most girls would have been hurrying so they wouldn't get trapped with Jes in her less than pleasant mood.

She quickly made her way to her locker, even taking the short way through the Cheerios section. It made her feel good; that would show them. She opened her locker and was placing her shoes in it when Santana made her entrance. Instead of going to her own locker she headed straight for Brittany.

"What was that? We weren't done." She said staring at the back of Brittany's head as Brittany refused to turn around.

"I was in a hurry."

"Right." Santana drew out the word skeptically.

Brittany pushed the spandex down her legs and stepped out of them before quickly grabbing her jeans from her locker. She was acutely aware that Santana was still behind her. She could pretty much feel the girls aura. She quickly but carefully, as she didn't want to trip and fall over in Santana's presence, shoved each foot in its respective pant leg. She pulled the material up her legs, jumping a little to force stubborn fabric up the remaining few inches of her sweat-damped skin.

"Are you mad at me?"

The question surprised Brittany. Why was she even asking? What did she care if Brittany was mad at her or not? Yes Brittany was mad. She was borderline furious. But with Santana? No, she was just mad at the situation in general. She had been mad at Santana last Friday when she stood by and let Rachel get slushied. And to an extent she was mad at Santana for allowing so much cruelty under her reign. She was practically royalty at Mckinley and she didn't even seem to have a problem with the bullying. But now she wasn't so much mad at Santana, she was mad at Jes and Carmen and the rest of the cheer squad. Mad at the Zebra and Mr. Jerkins and even Puck and the jocks for their treatment of Colin. Mad that Highschool was so petty that these things were the most important issues they thought they should face. Mad that she had to spend so much of her energy balling her emotions up lest Jes or someone else get the better of her.

"Doesn't matter." Brittany finally responded.

"Well it kind of does." Santana spoke in a less harsh tone. "Look, I know Jes can be a complete ass and I wish I could say it was going to stop soon but most likely it isn't." Brittany nodded her head, not knowing what to say as she continued to look for her shirt at the back of her locker. How could she let her locker get so dirty in only a couple weeks? "Especially since you are bound and determined to challenge her to continue every time she is getting the least bit bored with you. What you did today is just going to fuel her for at least another week. I've known Jes a long time and if you would just lay low for a few weeks she will move on to something else."

"You mean someone else." Brittany stated as she finally pulled her shirt from under her backpack. Funny how she remembered throwing them on her bag and they end up under it. Maybe there were elves in Mckinley. Brittany brought her shirt up to her nose and smelled it, a habit she had gotten into when she couldn't remember what clothes needed washing strewn on her bedroom carpet. Brittany's nose crinkled, they smelled like locker room. Well if there were elves the least they could do would be to wash her clothes before they hid them on her.

"Well yeah I guess. But at least she'll be off your back. She talks some pretty big shit but for the most part she's ju-" Santana paused as Brittany removed her gym shirt. "Holy fuck!" She exclaimed. "What the hell happened to you."

Brittany looked over her shoulder and saw Santana zeroed in on her back. Brittany lifted her arm and twisted to try and see what had captured the Latina's attention. When she did the skin over her back stretched and a dull pain throbbed from over the back of her left ribs causing Brittany's breath to catch in her throat.

"Oh, that." Brittany wrapped her right arm around her ribs and touched the spot softly. "Ya looks pretty bad huh? Feels about as bad as it looks too." Brittany knew it was a deep purple and yellow blemish from what she had glimpsed in the mirror that morning. She could only imagine it had gotten worse.

Brittany faced her locker once more and tried to sort out her shirt to the right way but was having some difficulty. She jumped as soft cold fingers gently pressed the skin just above her bruise. She sucked in a breath and held it. Santana trailed her fingers just on the edge of the bruises heat before flattening her entire palm against the blemish. Brittany's burning skin cooled at the touch and tingles spread from where her hand touched. Brittany let out the air she was holding in a shaky exhale. Santana began rubbing her thumb down the outer edge of the bruise, tickling over the side of her ribs and Brittany shivered at the sensation. She had to bite her tongue, literally, to keep from making a noise as Santana's hand moved over her skin. She was embarrassingly sure that the sound threatening to break from her throat would unfortunately closely resemble a moan.

"How did you do this?" Santana whispered the question but Brittany realized she had no trouble hearing the words, which only meant Santana had moved considerably closer than the arm's length she had been a moment ago. The question effectively snapped Brittany out of her trance.

"I didn't do anything. Carmen decided it would be hilarious to elbow me in the back on her way by me in History." Brittany responded sarcastically.

"What? Carmen did this?" The edge was back in Santana's voice but her hand continued to trace over Brittany's damaged skin softly.

"Yeah, yesterday. She must have been getting bored of the usual kicking the back of my desk and pulling individual strands of my hair out." Brittany jammed her head and arms through their respective holes in her shirt and pulled it down. Santana's hand was briefly trapped between Brittany's body and the fabric of her shirt until Brittany forced her body to turn, causing Santana's hand to drop to her side. "I can see how threatening letters and pencil stabbings would become uninteresting after a while. I'm getting bored of all of it as well." She looked directly into Santana's eyes. "Injuries lose their appeal after you accumulate as many as I have." Santana's eyes turned questioning. "Or if you haven't noticed I don't think there was a spare inch of my body that didn't have some mark I'd received from one of your precious Cheerios besides my face. It was very generous of them to spare me that. That is until today when Jes decided that much unblemished skin just couldn't be left untouched."

Brittany quickly turned and gathered up her things, knowing she was going to have to run all the way to English if she was going to catch Mr. Jenkins before he left again and decided to give her two more weeks of detentions.

"Brittany I-" Santana paused and Brittany tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered at hearing Santana say her name. It was a reaction she should have expected but didn't. It took her by surprise. She couldn't afford to let that distract her at the moment. When she was safely at home she might allow herself to dwell on it more but now she had somewhere to be.

"Look," Brittany swung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and closed her locker door and locked it. "I have detention to get to and I don't really want to add anymore to the list because of you or your fiends okay? Last week I missed it and Mr. Jenkins gave me a whole weeks worth because of it. I gotta go. Have fun with your friends at practice. I'm looking forward to seeing you all around next week."

With that Brittany turned away from Santana, not allowing her to say anything more before she sprinted out of the change room and up the stairs, praying she hadn't missed the English teacher for the second Friday in a row.


End file.
